TRAI is trying to regulate TV ads

The Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (TRAI) feels that it is time to begin regulating ads on TV. The suggestions made by TRAI are:

• Restricting ad time to 12 minutes per hour in case of free-to-air channels like Doordarshan, for pay channels it has suggested a limit of 6 minutes per hour.
• It has suggested certain restrictions in case of sports events.
• It wants to do away with part screen or window ads.

These and more suggestions have been made by TRAI in order to ensure that the viewers have a pleasant TV viewing experience; for more information on this please read TRAI says too many ads on TV, wantscurbs and TRAIreviews ad time policy for TV channels.  

Thums Up New TV Commercial -- The Action Continues

The above picture is from the latest Thums Up TV commercial which is yet to be released. The brand Thums Up has been associated with action, courage and dare-devilry for quite some years; although I am not in favour of using celebrities I find that alongwith Akshay Kumar’s celebrity status his action hero image plays an important role in the brand’s positioning. All the three cola brands have been using celebrities for years; currently Pepsi is trying to appeal to the youth with its ‘Youngistan’ campaign perhaps trying to reposition Coca-Cola as fuddy-duddy like it occasionally did in the past. Coca-Cola in turn has been also trying to give itself a youthful image by using Imran Khan. Interestingly Amir Khan endorsed the brand earlier and now the baton has passed on to his young nephew Imran.

Thums Up also from the Coca-Cola stable has a positioning that is distinctly different; age is bypassed in favour of an association of with action, courage and dare-devilry. The brand does not use the celebrity as a crutch here. If in future the company decides to stop using a celebrity and instead uses a professional model, it will not matter much as long as the association with action, courage and dare-devilry continues.

For a sneak preview of the new Thums Up commercial visit http://www.facebook.com/thumsupfan

Durga Puja ---- Thums Up Commercial.

Advertising in India has indeed come a long way. It is no longer about an ad being created in English and sometimes in Hindi and then being translated into various regional languages. For many years now ads are specially created for the regional language audience and the best time to see some excellent ads is during the festivals.