Patanjali Ad Campaign — Bringing Back Swadeshi

 

Patanjali Ayurved Ltd. is the biggest success story in the Indian consumer products industry in recent times. No consumer products company, whether Indian or foreign, has grown so fast and has been able to market such a large number products in India in such a short time. The company was founded by Baba Ramdev and Acharya Balkrishna in the year 2006, it grew very rapidly and it claims to have posted sales of Rs. 5000 crore (approximately US$ 770 mn) in the financial year 2015-2016 which the company wanted to double in the following financial year; have they been able to achieve it? So far I do not know. It plans to increase its reach by having 4000 distributors, it wants to have over 10,000 company owned outlets and 100 Patanjali-branded stores and supermarkets. As reported in the media it has tied up with retail chains like Future Group and Reliance Retail for deeper penetration; it has plans to set up six new manufacturing facilities in different parts of India. Patanjali Ayurved claims to have 500 products in categories such as ayurvedic medicines, soaps and toiletries, herbal cosmetics, cooking oils, food, cleaning products and perhaps more; it also has sights on the clothing market and desires to launch its brand of jeans; the list keeps increasing.

The Power of Red

The current Eveready ad campaign Give Me Red featuring Akshay Kumar reminds me of the original Give Me Red campaign 22 years ago, fortunately I was able to find the two ads on YouTube. The energy levels in those two ads were high and the same is being maintained in the current Akshay Kumar campaign. The essential difference between the old and the current campaign is that the old one was promoting Red Eveready batteries whereas the current one is promoting a range of rechargeable products launched by Eveready Industries India Ltd. The battery plays an important part in the performance of these products.

Fogg Body Deodorants – A Good Reason To Buy

I always believe that if you have something to sell you must be able to answer a simple question – Why should my target customer spend his hard earned money to buy my product? – The question appears simple but the answer may not always be so; the marketer must give the target customer a good reason to buy if his ad campaign has to work. In a highly competitive situation there are several players making similar claims and all or most competing brands are capable of satisfying the needs of the target consumer equally well because there might be no significant differences in the physical and functional attributes of products of competing brands. In such a situation marketers go beyond the physically characteristics or functional aspects of the product in question and position the brand/product on entirely different platforms – lifestyle, aspiration, pride, fear and many more or in other words take the emotional or psychological route. In this post I would like to discuss the advertising of two deodorant brands – Fogg and Axe.

Mustard Oil and Bengalis – Connecting with culture & tradition

This post is about two Bengali TV campaigns, both are mustard oil brands targeting the Bengali population; one is Emami Healthy and Tasty Mustard Oil and the other is Nutrela Kachhi Ghani Mustard Oil. The Emami campaign comprises four ads while Nutrela is a single ad campaign.

In a product category such as cooking oils which is essentially a commodity, positioning brands is a challenge. One mustard oil is no different from the other so no differentiation can be shown in the advertising in terms of physical characteristics; differentiation is possible only in the label design and advertising. The target audience in both campaigns is exactly the same and the essential message is also the same, which is about enhancing the flavours of Bengali food. Despite the similarities both campaigns are based on different consumer insights, hence are significantly different for each

SCA – Libero and Tempo

In November 2013 the Indian FMCG market saw a new entrant – SCA, one of the world's largest companies in personal care products. The company’s two brands – Libero and Tempo were unveiled. Libero is a range of baby care products; it comprises of baby diapers, baby wipes and baby toiletries. The second brand is Tempo – a range of hand and face hygiene products. In this post I would like to comment upon the advertising I have seen of these two

Snickers - ‘Kyunki hunger Acche Acchon Ko Badal Deta Hai’

 The Snickers ad campaign was first launched in India sometime in the year 2008 and it was promoted as a snack to be eaten between meals, the first Indian TV commercial  for Snickers ‘Iske to char baj gaye!’ that was created had the tagline 'Hunger Baja Char Snickers Kholo Yaar' (When hunger strikes at four unwrap a Snickers). The ad showed a goal keeper who is

not alert because he feeling hungry at 4.00 pm, but after he eats a bar of Snickers which is passed please see the ad on YouTube). The brand was pretty low key when it was introduced in India in 2004, few shops stocked it and the advertising was not enough. The product itself was imported and not manufactured in
to him by the spectators he begins to perform well and saves a goal (

Parle Digestive Marie Biscuit – Healthy but not tasty?

This Parle Digestive Marie Biscuit ad which was launched in 2013 is set in an office; a male employee is shown with a pack of digestive biscuits (without any brand) on his desk which he is supposed to be eating. His boss comes into the scene and asks him as to why is he eating it, the employee replies that it is tasty, in response the boss taunts him and tempts him with various other tasty snacks like samosas, pizza and cream cake. This is followed  by

The Bold and The Stupid

 Some advertisements I come across surprise me, sometimes for the right reasons and sometimes for the wrong reasons. Some ads are truly bold and hard hitting but others are bizarre. You will see what I mean, please read on, I picked up few that appeared in the press in the last 12 months.

Delishus Gourmet Cookies

This is one ad you cannot miss. The big blowup of the cookie is attractive and mouthwatering – very good photography indeed. The body copy is nice, simple and brief. The Sunfeast Delishus Gourmet Cookies brand has been repeated twice which I think is quite clever. There is one thing unusual you may have noticed, that is the product pack shot is missing; but that does not matter at all because the branding is pretty strong. An interesting element in this ad the “store locator” at the bottom of the ad, this is a website that can

Soft drinks ads in the summer of 2013

I have observed that most soft drinks brands today are getting more and more dependent on celebrity endorsement. The three cola brands have used celebrities for decades; among mango drinks Slice has been using Katrina Kaif for some years. This year Maaza has jumped into the celebrity bandwagon by using Imran Khan and Pariniti Chopra, till last year Maaza ads were pretty good without celebrities. Humour was very well used so why are celebrities being used now? Well at least the basic message/proposition has remained consistent –“Har mausam aam”.

What surprises me this summer of 2013 is the Frooti ad campaign featuring

Bisleri 500 – ‘Kiss to drink’

The three ad TV campaign for Bisleri 500 is surely among the good ones I have seen in recent times. The 500 ml pack is now a special pack with Bisleri 500 prominently shown on the label; the ad campaign aims to popularize this pack as a convenient-to-carry pack for all age groups. In a category like bottled water it is difficult to say anything new in its advertising in order to bring about any kind of product differentiation, after all how different one brand of bottled water can be from another? The only differences there could be are the shape of the bottle and the design of the label. After a point

Hitting out at cockroaches

Godrej Consumer Products Limited recently launched HIT Anti Roach Gel. A product in this category was first introduced by Godrej Hicare Ltd. some years ago, though not in the FMCG space but was part of the pest control services offered by the company; today there are other companies offering pest control services who also make use of anti cockroach gel. Use of anti cockroach gel is relatively a new concept; it is a simple, clean and by far the most effective way of getting rid of cockroaches. The gel is applied in form of small spots at places frequented by cockroaches, it attracts cockroaches that eat them and die, and other cockroaches who feed upon the infected dead cockroach also die. This is truly a revolutionary concept and I

do not think there are too many players in this category in the FMCG space. HIT Anti Roach Gel is not the first anti cockroach gel to be introduced in India in the FMCG sector as claimed by Godrej Consumer
Products Limited in their ad, at least not technically; there is one more product which is older than HIT Anti Roach Gel, it is Care & Guard Cockroach Killer Gel but I am sure it is not distributed widely, maybe it is available in pockets only in south India.

The TV commercial (TVC) launching HIT Anti Roach Gel shows a man noticing a cockroach on the wall, he removes his shoe and throws it at the cockroach and instantly kills it, after this there is some drama that is enacted

Biscuits with Coffee

In response to my earlier post Hide & Seek – Aroma of Fresh Coffee a reader sent me an email enquiring if a coffee spray similar to the coffee spray used in the Hide & Seek Caffé Mocha press ad was available for personal use; my answer to this is that I have absolutely no idea, I have never come across such a product. Now coming to my post -- Biscuits with Coffee

Currently there are two coffee flavoured biscuit campaigns running on TV and they make very similar claims – both brands of biscuits have coffee in them and their ads suggest that these can be substituted for actual coffee. One campaign that of is Parle Hide & Seek Caffé Mocha and the other is Britannia Bourbon Cappuccino. TV commercials for both products feature a

Using Celebrities Sensibly

I am not much of a supporter of using celebrities in advertisements but at times celebrities may be necessary when the ad agency runs out of creative ideas. There are two (celebrity) ad campaigns which have foxed me totally; one is a TV commercial for Ujala Supreme and the other is of Nano Clean – a range of liquid cleaners. Ujala uses Sachin Tendulkar and Nano Clean uses Amitabh Bachchan. Ujala is a well known liquid blue brand which has been in the market for many years, as far as I know the sales of this product has grown over the years. I therefore wonder why they needed celebrity endorsement now, and why Sachin Tendulkar?
In what way does he contribute to the brand? My personal feeling tells me that Sachin was a wrong choice for a product category like this; his endorsement will have no significant value. With or without Sachin the effect of the ad campaign is unlikely to be any different. It was possible that the sale graph for Ujala was not moving upwards any more,

Hide & Seek - Aroma of Fresh Coffee

On the morning of May 29, 2012 I picked up The Times of India to check the headlines and noticed a refreshing aroma of freshly brewed coffee hitting my nostrils. At first I thought someone in the neighbourhood was preparing coffee but I knew very well that it could not be so; from where was the coffee aroma coming from I wondered? I realized that it came from the newspaper I was holding, did someone spill coffee on it? No the aroma emanated from an advertisement of Hide & Seek – Caffé Mocha, a new variant of Parle Hide & Seek biscuits just launched.

How did the coffee aroma get into the press ad? I learnt from Everest Brand Solutions, the ad agency handling the account, that the paper was first

Kissanpur

Processed foods are generally marketed on the platforms of taste/flavour, health & nutrition and fun; marketers at times also stress that good quality raw materials are used in the manufacture of their products to support their claims. Hindustan Unilever Ltd. has gone one step further with its new Kissan Tomato Ketchup campaign; it is attempting to bring about a change in certain consumer attitudes.

I am referring to the Kissan Tomato Ketchup press campaign called Welcome to Kissanpur which is currently running. It gives an opportunity to children to ‘experience real nature, the Kissan way’. The first ad actually had a small plastic sachet containing tomato seeds; children have been invited to be part of a contest in which they are required to use these seeds to grow tomatoes and submit them to the company. Among the entries submitted the company will use tomatoes in the top 100 entries to actually make Kissan

Stop This Stupidity

Perfetti is known for its brands like Alpenliebe, Center Fresh, Big Babol, Happydent, Chlormint, Mentos and others. What is interesting is that humour has been used very effectively in promoting these brands over several years. The company has now entered the snack food business with Stop Not Golz. Following their tradition the advertising for Stop NotGolz also takes the humour route. The TV commercial shows a battle scene, soldiers are busy

I Have Earned A Bournville! - By Shilpi Bose

I occasionally contribute to this blog but have been absent for some time now. You see multi-tasking is the buzz word today but I am hopeless at multi-tasking; for me it has always been one job at a time. I sort of get stressed when I have to do too many things at a time. Recently therefore when my co-blogger  and brother Aroop Bose told me that it is time I made a contribution I thought, “Goodness me! I already have my own food blog -- It is tasty ma! and I am also working on a film blog which I plan to launch shortly and not to mention my household chores” …. Even as these thoughts crossed my mind my eyes fell on the Bournville press ad.

Though the first Cadbury Bournville commercial attracted my attention I

Googly Biscuits

While watching Ke Hobe Banglar Kotipoti or Kaun Banega Crorepati in Bengali hosted by Sourav Ganguly I came across an ad in Bengali for a biscuit brand called Googly. I do not wish to comment on this ad but I would like to share it. As it appears Googly is local brand in West Bengal or perhaps in Eastern India (I really don't know) which might not be known in other parts of India; I did not know about it until I saw the ad. There is nothing in the ad to make it memorable, yet I found it quite interesting. The ad uses 3-D animation and the main character is quite obviously a cartoon version of cricketer Sourav Ganguly. Whether Sourav Ganguly's consent was taken for this ad I do not know but the advertisers did a clever thing by showing the ad in the TV programme hosted by Sourav Ganguly himself.

Watch the ad below:

     

Mango Frooti – Growing Up Part 2

Recent Times

The name Frooti has become generic to the category of fruit drinks in Tetra Brik packs to some extent. A colleague of mine had once shared with me an interesting anecdote; for some reason he had happened to ask a friend of his whether he had ever heard of Jumpin, the reply he got was, “Oh Jumpin Mango Frooti, of course I have heard of it!” That was years ago, a few days ago someone visited this blog while searching for ‘Jumpin Frooti’. This shows how strong Frooti has become in the category of fruit drinks in Tetra Brik packs.

Mango Frooti – Growing Up Part 1

Early years

Advertising of Frooti has gone the reality route in the recent times, the ad campaign this summer is based on mango themed games, and people of different age groups are shown participating and having fun. Frooti’s reality advertising actually began last year, the ads featured giant sized mangoes were shown falling and tumbling much to the shock and surprise of passers-by who were unaware that a TV commercial was being shot. A post by Shilpi Bose on this campaign was earlier carried in this blog. Over the years Frooti’s advertising has changed a lot, so has its package – from Tetra Brik pack to PET bottle and competition; let me share some of its history, whatever I can recall.

Frooti is a 25 year old brand, at the time of its launch what differentiated it