The Good, The Bad and The Ad

If you Google “How to advertise”, one of the first results that shows up on the screen is the wikihow link that has a list of what it takes to make a good advertisement. The advertisement has to be creative and funny while telling the audience what they need and want to know at the same time avoiding what they don’t want to hear, and keeping the location and the target audience in mind and directed to. It was quite the read, but all the while I had a question echoing through the top floor.

Do I want to be an advertiser?

If one asking this of themselves finds the answer as a yes, then the obvious question that follows would be, Why? And if the answer now is creativity, I’d ask you to think again. Being smart, intelligent beings we have the ability, and should use it too, to learn from others, their mistakes. And there is an example we can learn from close to home, to us all. Living in India, a favorite example of mine is Sanjay F Gupta, a remarkable video maker for songs, who was miles from the mark in the longer, movies. I wonder what must have been going through his mind when he decided to make a movie. Probably,

Road Blocked!!

Pegasus, Turkey’s youngest airline company recognises that when customers want to buy a ticket, they often search online for available dates and prices. Aware of the important role internet plays in the marketing mix, Pegasus turned to MSN Turkey to announce the launch of its new flight routes and drive consumers to its Web site. It created a road block for other brands on MSN. It bought all the advertising space on MSN for that period of time.

Road Block Advertising is a term coined for an advertising strategy where the concerned company buys up all the available slots on a particular kind of media for a particular amount of time.

Viral to Hinterland

It takes vision to create a campaign. And going the viral way takes more than just vision. It takes heart, mind and soul. No wonder it is a tricky affair and failure is a dark shadow.

“I was recently watching the trailers for the upcoming movie ‘I love you, Beth Cooper’, about a valedictorian who confesses his love for the most popular girl in school during his graduation speech and this inspired me to make a confession of my own. Given that this is the last day of high school and not knowing what can happen, I cannot let this opportunity just pass by. So here it goes…I love you, Jake Minor.” 

Kenya Meija was hired by 20^th Century Fox, paid $1800, to close her valedictory address at Los Angeles’s Alexander Hamilton High School. Fox hired consultants to videotape her speech, keeping the production values low so as to make it look authentic. The video was then posted on YouTube. Hardly anyone saw the clip, and the same was the movie. It took in just $13.5 million in its first three weeks, which was $6 million less the production cost. 

Marketing: Hitting Sixes On Uncharted Terrain

The unabashed show of money, glamor, glitz, and power called the “Indian Premier League” had the entire nation in frenzy, with the recently held player auction. The show was filled with unexpected twists and turns, with many unheralded players hitting the jackpot, and many experienced players being shown the door by franchises. The event attracted the attention of the entire cricketing fraternity across the globe with many foreign stars in the fray for IPL spots and the big bucks that accompany them.

 

The show was an expression of the growing power of cricket in the global sports arena. Already, the IPL is an event of global popularity, and interest levels are growing exponentially with each passing year. Also, the CL-T20 is also growing as a brand with each passing year. These are great times indeed for the game, and India is leading the way forward in revolutionizing the sport. The leading IPL stars would receive pay equivalent to some of the top stars in the English Premier League. These are interesting times for cricket, and if properly marketed and branded, IPL and

Creating Ripples Through Experience

To increase sales, the company needs to satisfy the consumer needs in a superior fashion. These days, companies are trying to sell the experience rather than the product in order to boost the satisfaction. If the consumer purchases a durable product then it takes a long time before he again buys any similar product. By selling the experience along with the product, the companies are making sure that consumer sells this experience to other consumers, hence creating the ripple effect.

The consumers are willing to pay a premium for experience. Consider homemade coffee which hardly costs you Rs. 2, if you buy it from local coffee shop then it will cost you around Rs. 5 which is reasonable still, but if you buy it at Cafe Coffee Day, Barista or Star-bucks it will cost you in excess of Rs. 30. So basically consumer willingly pays 500% more than the local coffee shop, also he takes the experience with him and spreads a word about these places. Similarly, no person goes to Disneyland only for the rides and goodies they provide there, but to have an experience with their closed ones and Disneyland provides them exactly that.