NEW EPISODE ON COLA WARS IN INDIA SET TO BEGIN

Last year saw Coca-Cola's long-time brand endorser, Aamir Khan 'Opening' happiness for the brand in India (Open Happiness being the global creative thought adopted by the brand a while ago). Khan, who has been endorsing Coca-Cola or Coke for over a decade, was seen as a messenger of optimism in the campaign, where a bottle of Coke brought people together in their joy. 

Anand Singh, director, marketing, colas, Coca-Cola India, tells, "As the new campaign targets teenagers, we were looking for a teenage heartthrob that the youth look up to. Imran fits that image perfectly." Singh adds that Imran's real-life relationship with Aamir Khan, of course, propelled the association further; in future campaigns, the duo may even be seen endorsing the brand together.

"Coca-Cola has been growing successfully and has established a strong connect with the youth. The global communication initiative is all about inviting people to welcome small moments of joy and happiness into their lives. The idea really is to pause, enjoy a bottle of Coca-Cola, and also enjoy life's simple pleasures," Singh elaborates.

The new communication takes the Open Happiness theme to the next level, by building spontaneous human connections and sharing joys even with strangers. A new punch line, 'Coke khule toh baat chale' (Coke opens up possibilities), was arrived at to further this thought. 

The commercial, titled 'Invisible Bottle', features Imran Khan and Kalki Koechlin of DevD fame. It shows Koechlin sitting in a crowded bus, trying to catch the attention of a hesitant standee, Imran Khan. The bolder of the two, she spots a hoarding of Coca-Cola, and once Khan looks her way, she pretends to grab the Coke bottle from the hoarding and attempts to take a sip. Then, she offers the invisible bottle to him. 

Our hesitant boy plays along and pretends to down the entire bottle, and is apologetic about it. However, he wins her over by taking out a real bottle of Coke from his bag, and offering it to her, real time. As the two exchange sweet glances, the film concludes on the thought, 'Coke khule toh baat chale'. "The latest communication is based on the spontaneous human connections between people, particularly those who are unlike each other," says Prasoon Joshi, executive chairperson (India) and regional executive creative director, McCann Erickson, Asia Pacific.

"Through the lovable device of the invisible bottle, brand Coca-Cola breaks the ice of social distance between a boy and a girl and brings them together." He also adds that the new campaign with Imran Khan is more youthful, playful and fun in nature. 

Taking the brand idea, Youngistaan, forward, Pepsico India has unveiled a new campaign with a refreshed tagline, ‘Youngistaan ka Wow’.”

Hari Krishnan, executive business director, JWT Delhi said, “The new campaign celebrates the spirit of Youngistaan – their audacious self belief. The confidence with which youth challenge convention and overcome obstacles in their way and get what they want. ‘Wow’ stands for two things: firstly, the 'Wow' refreshment and magic of Pepsi Cola, and the 'Wow' impact created by Youngistaan in the world around them.”

 The film is about Ranbir Kapoor and his Pepsi, which gets hijacked by the President's bodyguards. The storyline revolves around how Kapoor effortlessly outsmarts the security officials and gets his Pepsi in the end.

It is an unusual pairing, certainly evoking a curiosity element to it… Perhaps that's why international giant cola company, Pepsi has signed up Sanjay Dutt with Ranbir Kapoor for their latest campaign, which will hit television screens within a week.

"Although Ranbir recently shot a campaign with the brand in America inside a posh English mansion, they felt that another campaign needed to be brought in during the Indian Premier League, which attracts huge eyeballs. So Sanjay Dutt was brought in to bring a wow factor to the Pepsi campaign. The brand also felt that Sanjay Dutt brings to the table a certain male audience, which compliments Ranbir's Youngistaan audience for a global and family entertainment extravaganza like the Indian Premier League."

Looks like cola companies are all set to make full use of the ongoing Indian premier league which has been a super hit , Pepsi  has learnt their lesson and has not repeated the same mistake which they committed last year of sponsoring the league and teams participating where coke didn’t spend anything on such things but aired their ads with more slots and booking places like boundary boards and places in stadium which has more visibility than tiny logos on player’s jerseys.

Both the companies are eyeing youth to buy their products which is evident b their campaigns and brand ambassadors they have signed. Agencies who are working with these companies McCann Erickson for coke and JWT for Pepsi have put in their souls in conceptualizing these  wonderful works . Coke has scored on creativity as their ads have reflected out of the box thinking and fundamentally also they are absolutely correct in positioning and conveying their message to target people but I don’t know if Pepsi will be able to do same with Ranbir and Sanjay Dutt  as in quest of targeting both the youth and middle aged people they might fail to do so . as already Pepsi has reduced their expenditure on advertising and promotions which shows that they are looking to reduce their losses  this fiscal. 

CONTD : INCREDIBLE UTTAR PRADESH

 I’m here again writing on Uttar Pradesh as no one can ignore  this state which is always in news because of one thing or another .As It was a one woman show at the BSP rally marking the 76th birth anniversary of its founder Kanshi Ram on Monday with Chief Minister Mayawati being presented a garland made of hundreds of Rs 1000 notes while other leaders were literally relegated to the background.

Unlike previous occasions when the BSP supremo was greeted with bouquets, she was welcomed this time by a giant garland made of hundreds of Rs. 1000 notes by her ministers. The garland also attracted the attention of the crowd at Ramabai Ambedkar maidan as they could not make out from a distance that it was made of currency notes.

Overall Rs 200 crore were spend on this party on  several  things to woo the party president , almost Rs 5 crore were spent on building temporary toilets and 12000 state transport buses were used to move party cadres to the venue .This is not the first time Mayawati has doe anything like this but she’s been in the news for spending public money on such things lavishly as no one is there to ask her from where she has got so  much money to spend  and on her part there is no accountability as no one dares to ask her how is public money is used .

A land which is so vibrant and full of culture is being maneuvered  by this  government , with  almost no doubt over the states  ability to perform and become an example for the whole  of the country if it gets what is needed to outperform . with industrial places like Hapur , Modi nagar , Ghaziabad , lucknow and Allahabad .Industries who were there in Uttar Pradesh have migrated to Uttaranchal or Madhya Pradesh  because of improper facilities and policies of the state government.

If Uttar Pradesh ahs to rise again it has to look after its core strengths like agriculture , sugar industry and other industries who had strong foothold in UP earlier , they need to back themselves  and believe they can do it with government on there side .

Wishing U.P  luck and hoping  they will prove everybody else what they are made up of and as one of my friend said there are positive things happening in U.P  and rightly said they have the potential which corporate can use in future.

INCREDIBLE UTTAR PRADESH

The brand Uttar Pradesh which has been known for its rich culture heritage history and  incidents which took place in different eras on this soil has a special place in the hearts of people whether they are from India or not because of places like Agra, Banaras ,Mathura ,Allahabad and many more ,every city has its story and something to tell to its visitors .but in the recent times the scenario has changed once famous for its cultural and heritage sites is now in the news for terrorism corruption  violence and several things which ruining the image of this wonderful state.

Azamgarh or lucknow everywhere you can see similar violent acts being committed as they say its on top of the charts when it comes to crime rate along with Bihar which also faces similar problems because of poor administration and incompetent people running the state. Few days back  there was a stampede in a temple  near lucknow and around 63 people lost their lives , but that doesn’t matter to chief minister of the state Kumari Mayawati who refused to pay compensation to family of deceased quoting that state doesn’t have sufficient funds to pay but they have funds for beautification of state capital by huge statues of her own , kansi ram and her party logo i.e. Elephant , one such statue cost the state around 2.5crore which according to her is justified.

Now there’s one more story to this incompetent and bureaucratic government , a week back 4 students who are studying in XII standard were  arrested because they ripped off her electoral posters from the walls of the city , for which they were arrested and sent to juvenile home for weeks and the station head officer (SHO) of Lucknow police station  who to sycophant the chief minister of the state kept them in custody and charges of damaging public property and a case had been lodged against them under the Prevention of Damage to Public Property Act while they didn’t bother about their higher secondary examinations for which they have to appear.

School sources alleged that the “SHO Sarojini Nagar was settling scores as his request for admission of a child in mid-session was turned down by the authorities.”

This would only showcase the kind of administration and governance is going on in Uttar Pradesh and will only spoil the image of the state at a broader canvas . building statues doesn’t add to the image of the city but its people and state administration .what matters is do  people feel safe in the state and the quality of work life they are getting.

Hope politicians ,administrators and local people will understand this and help themselves in building a better state which will lead the way for others who are facing similar problems .

"The art of politics consists in knowing precisely when it is necessary to hit an opponent slightly below the belt”

HUL's latest television commercial for Rin, which makes a direct dig at P&G's Tide detergent, has raised many eyebrow .The TVC makes a no-holds barred comparison between Rin and Tide Naturals, going on to claim that the latter is incompetent of fighting stains and providing whiteness like Rin.

HUL has been under pressure since quite some time due to the launch of similar products backed by aggressive advertisement by its competitors.  The latest conflict appears to have started when P&G introduced its brand Tide washing powder , which ate into the sales of HUL's Rin washing powder.

Observers say HUL tried restructuring its brand portfolio and reduced prices so as to attract middle-class consumers.

In order to retain its market share, a couple of months ago P&G introduced a low-cost detergent, Tide Natural, claiming in its ads that it provided "whiteness with special fragrance".  The product was positioned against HUL's Rin and Wheel.

HUL retaliated with an aggressive two-pronged strategy. 

• First, it challenged Tide's claim of whiteness with special fragrance in the Chennai High Court, which passed an order on 25 February 2010 , directing P&G to modify the advertisement since it was not really able to substantiate the claim of "whiteness with special fragrance". The court has granted an injunction and directed P&G to respond within three weeks. 

Three days later on 28 February, HUL launched an aggressive TV campaign aired during prime time, showing two mothers waiting at a bus stop for their children returning from the school. 

While waiting together they glance at each other's shopping baskets.
One woman's basket has a packet of Rin detergent powder, while the other has a packet of Tide Naturals.

The Tide lady boasts confidently about Tide's khushboo aur safedi bhi (fragrance combined with whiteness) the theme on which the Tide Naturals campaign was based. The Rin lady does not show any reaction but has a beam on her face. Thereafter, the school bus stops and drops off the two children.

The child of the woman carrying Tide is wearing a visibly dull shirt, while behind him a boy comes out wearing a spotless white  shirt, who runs across the shocked Tide lady towards the mother carrying the Rin packet.

Making the advertisement more aggressive, the boy asks his mother, "Aunty chaunk kyun gayi?" ("chaunk" or startle has been used  in P&G's earlier punch line) as the ad concludes with a voice-over that Rin is 'behtar' than  Tide, when it comes to whiteness and at a  chaukanewala price of Rs25.

"HUL could not arrest the decline of the shares of some key brands to the competitors like P&G , Godrej and ITC. This desperation has clearly manifested in the latest ad for Rin. What on earth do (sic) a brand like Rin get into a direct comparative spat with its competitor...Rin chose a wrong way of telling its superiority to the consumer."

The ball is now in ASCI's (Advertising Standards Council of India) court. Replying to a query from Campaign India, Alan Collaco, secretary general, ASCI said, "A complaint has been registered against the Rin ad. The ASCI's Consumer Complaints Council will meet on 23rd March to discuss the matter."

That will gain give some time to HUL to air this ad and target  his competitor for almost a month .

Getting into Social Networking Site's ...is it worth it ?

I start with a confession. I am a Twitteraholic. I’ve been hooked on Twitter for more days than I can remember.

I even hate myself for not being able to look away from my TweetDeck of followers and people I’m following because, well, I kind of have to get some other work done. In other words, I’m a fan.But I also realize that there is much more entailed with building a true social media strategy and I think some folks are missing the point if they feel that just being on certain sites like Twitter and Facebook is how a brand automatically grows. Not so.

Worse yet, you probably have some people from within or outside consultants saying, “We need social media!” or “We need to be on Twitter!” or “We need to be on Facebook!” or several other methods. But they aren’t explaining why you need to be on those things. Why, because everyone else is doing it? That’s kind of a lousy strategy. And what will you do once you are on some of these sites? Just talk about yourself? That’s not a particularly good way to establish a relationship.

So you get social media is important, but you don’t understand all the areas of it that have relevancy to you, how to fully harness its potential in relation to your brand and how to tie it back to the concepts you may be more comfortable with, like customer satisfaction, customer retention, ROI and brand loyalty. Am I anywhere near the challenge you’re facing? If you are challenged by any of the above, you have good company.

For the time being, let’s not talk of what type of social media you need to use. Considering this or that technique before appreciating what motivates your audience is not the right way to approach brand building, whether you use social media or not. Put another way, it’s like a doctor making a diagnosis before he or she knows the patient’s symptoms.

Now how one can build a more appropriate social media plan :

1.If you want to gain maximum exposure, keep yourself on the “public timeline” so everyone sees your tweets. To do so, leave the “Protect Your Updates” box in the Settings area unchecked. If you check this, then your Tweet updates will become private and you’ll have to approve who can follow you every time. It will also keep your updates out of search results within Twitter and you don’t want that to occur as this dramatically reduces the ability of others to find your company.

2. Use the ‘Find Other People’ or ‘Search’ tool on Twitter. Just type a name or particular concept such as branding, culture, marketing, etc. This can be huge if you type in people in your industry and then find others that are following them. It opens up your reach significantly within your targeted industry or area of interest.

3. Post Tweet updates (messages) regularly (i.e., several times daily but don’t bombard your followers). Share your knowledge and resources (remember 140 characters or less) on something of interest and that will help others such as case studies, business events, key ideas, etc. Don’t forget to provide any links to the information.

4. Make your Tweets understandable, inviting, compelling and informative. You want to attract the right Tweeters as followers and you’ll want to follow those that have a common interest in what your business brand has to offer. So, make sure the information you Tweet is useful.

5. Use hashtags by using the hash symbol (#) before a subject (e.g., #brand) in your update. This allows the search engines and others in the ‘Twitterverse’ to find your updates on the subject.

6. Use Twitter to make connections, identify prospective customers and point others to your company’s website or others’ website for resources. This is a huge opportunity, as you build

followership, to share your knowledge, communicate information on what you are doing, create a mini-press release, share info on your products and services, new product or service launches, or other resources (e.g., white papers, research, etc.) you may want to point others to.

7. Create multiple accounts to exponentially expand your company’s (brand) exposure.

Now points to remember :

• Social media is not all about you.
• Think about your target audience 

  and how they use social media (if they do).
• How do you plan on conversing/sharing 

  info with audiences in these realms?
• Just because it’s popular 

  doesn’t mean it’s right for your brand.
• Consistency, consistency, consistency
• You can have strong ROI ,

  Depending on how you view the “I.”

Is this our Destiny or what ?

Why does it happen to people who want to prove a point in front of someone and tell this world that there is somebody named “XYZ” who also exist  . when people feel desperate and show what they are made up off and what they can do as challenge all conventional attributes present and bring new change to our lives . people say dreams often  comes true but god knows who are these people and what it takes to reach that stage or point where you can say that you have achieved something and established your unique identity apart from your parents .you live your whole life thinking that you will do something which will make you and fore mostly your parents proud while most of our life we spent doing things we don’t want to do , in a way or other we  are compromising at different stages in our life whether its your career path or job .you are forced to do things which you don’t like sometimes its pressure from your parents ,or peers  and sometimes its bigger force then these i.e. your destiny which forces you to perform or do things not liked by you .

Heard  somewhere that “you should look for brilliance not success “ its sounds very  good to our ears but is it realistic and one can follow this principle in his/her life , don’t think  that’s true in our lives where certificates and degrees matter so much that brilliance or knowledge doesn’t stand anywhere near  and our system is such that you will be only considered when you fulfill all their criteria’s.

It doesn’t matter  how much mathematics you know but what matters is how much do you have scored  in your metric and higher secondary exams , companies like TCS , INFOSYS , UNILEVER and so on  would love to see your scores through  out your  academic career .is it written somewhere that a guy who has scored above 60% through out will be the one who will be outstanding  and his work will be of higher grade still they are following things .people who themselves don’t know what they want in their life gets everything which people who works hard only dreams of.

Interviews which are meant to analyze skills and ability of the candidate  but what happens is only referrals and donations are discussed ,that’s sad for people who are really interested and works hard to fulfill  their dreams.

Finally , I can only say that we should start something on our own lets be entrepreneurs  and change this system for forsake  and for the next generations.

When perfectionist Aamir takes on cute Hippo

For the longest time, the snacking category has munched on creative ideas that are centered around the 'time pass' way in which these products are consumed. In a bid to step away from the fun (and often frivolous) positioning adopted by some snack brands, Hippo - the new baked munchies from the Parle Agro stable - has attempted, in its very first campaign, to veer away from category norms.

Raj Kurup, founder and creative chairperson, Creativeland Asia, says, "Hungry people are often grumpy. In India, we respect food and it is a fantastic way of calming people down. If two people are fighting at home, often an elderly figure will calm them down by asking them to eat." This insight led to the final creative idea. To make the commercial identifiable, macro situations were chosen instead of household problems or micro ones. Some 90 situations involving societal/world problems were first penned down, of which six odd were shortlisted for the final film.

According to the agency, Hippo is this earnest, easygoing guy who understands that often, we don't take care of our health by neglecting to eat. As a character profile, Hippo resembles the affable waiter who loiters in the background at a party, serving food tactfully to ensure no one goes hungry and then quietly slips away. The creation of Hippo as a mascot (and one that stays behind the scenes, as his face isn't shown throughout the film) is, in a way, the brand's way of saying that the true heroes are its consumers, and that Hippo cares for them. "As a society, we share food in India and by way of doing that, we share love and joy. Hence, the 'Pyaar baante chalo' track fit in well with our idea," Kurup shrugs.

Prathap Suthan, national creative director, Cheil Worldwide, feels Creativeland Asia has done it again - first with LMN and now with Hippo - when it comes to a brand name that is sticky, memorable and 'snacky'. Further, he gives points to the bright packaging and branding and the healthy ingredients for a new snack brand.

"However, at the end of the commercial, I still don't know what kind of a snack this is," he says. As a customer in a competitive environment, Suthan aka Pat feels that he would like to know whether these are crispy chocolates, wafers, biscuits or potato chips. "By not showing them, there's mystery," he says, "But mystery may not make one want to put his hand inside the packet."

Pat feels that the film is definitely entertaining, with a big thought. "I empathise with the truth of hunger being the root of all evil, and therefore kill hunger - and kill evil," he says. "But it's just that I'd rather snack, refresh, get my breath and get back into more evil ways. But that's just me!" He adds that the social arena is a bit of an overkill, with too many people getting into the same box. However, this one is a "likeably mad film".

Now here comes another snack brand from the house of Parle Agro ,smart chips which positions itself as non fried but baked chips which will not increase fat in your body instead they are good for you which is absolutely right but what Parle has done is in one brand they are very conscious about who will be the brand ambassador , how will it position itself in the market and how to communicate it effectively to end consumers contrary to it with hippo snacks they have forgotten to emphasize what they are communicating to their consumers and how are they positioning their brand in the minds of the consumers who are really conscious now a days when it comes to their health due to the explosion of new and updated products in the market and globalization as well.

Aamir khan being the brand ambassador of the smart chips ,they are trying to relate Aamir’s perfectionist image with that of Smart chips and say that these snacks are as perfect as Aamir and they will not add vows to your health and they are low calorie product .They have differentiated well and positioned it very well but with Hippo chips choosing hippo itself created a problem as we relate obese and people with lots of fat with Hippo which sends a very wrong message to ordinary people as “ regular intake of these chips will make you Hippo “ which doesn’t serve the purpose well in the favor of the company .

Finally , I would say that the commercial is no doubt entertaining and the message of eradicating hunger by offering chips to people who are hungry in itself is very good and the creative team has done a great work otherwise but something is not happening good for them.

Pardon me ,but what I feel that the creative team have overlooked the basics of branding and advertisement as animated Hippo will add to their foes and may not able to generate volumes which are expected out of him .