A blog from a person who looks at the world through various lenses, questions the status quo in some cases, explains the status quo in some others, looks beyond the obvious and tries to build connections.
Did that make any sense? No... well then you need to read the blogs.
Once upon a time, there were flip phones in the world. Until, some companies decided to change the game and flip phones became a part of folklore.
But then, how can you keep the forefather of flip phone, #Motorola away from it? They were the pioneers in the flip phone era, launching their first flip phone model StarTAC way back in 1996.
Now, more than two decades later, Motorola launches its new model of Motorola Razr that is sleek, modern and stylish. It comes with all the features that you expect in a smart phone and yet retains some of the heritage from the earlier versions of the Razr.
A launch like this deserves an edgy commercial as well. Motorola does complete justice with their new ad film, which has great visuals accompanied with a strong music track.
On 19th Nov 2019, the world celebrated International Men's Day. As expected, there were many #brands that tried to leverage this day through their social media posts as well as their advertisements. There was one commercial that stood out for me. It was Gillette India's new Man Enough film that asks people to 'Shave Stereotypes' and says it is ok for men to cry.
There are a number of reasons why this film gets special:
It features a soldier, and soldiers are known to be the epitome of manliness.
The narrative is built on the real-life story of Lt Col M K Sinha SM and his father.
The story is narrated by the person himself, lending it so much credibility.
There is a significant role of the product and the brand.
The ad does not just leverage an occasion in a disjointed way, it rather helps #Gillette continue on its purpose driven communication.
The brand is helping in changing culture, making people sit back and reflect, sowing the seeds of change in society. All the key requirements of what strong brand campaigns are supposed to do.
Three things that you would associate with large size - a dragon, a space ship and the Empire State Building of New York.So when you think of building any of these three using #Lego, you would imagine lots of Lego pieces. However, if you break the convention, then even a few pieces could represent any of these. In a print #campaign in Thailand, Lego shows a big structure next to a miniature structure for each of the three things and each advert ends with the line 'For Every Size of Imagination'. This clearly shows that there is no criteria or norm of how #imagination should be. It can be as you want it to be or as you imagine it to be! Nicely done Lego!
If you are a book reader, you know that #books make us travel, giving wings to our imagination and perspectives to our thoughts.
Lectura, a book store in Bolivia wanted to show people the power of reading. So they launched a print #campaign showing passports with visa stamps. The visa stamps did not belong to countries but rather to the titles of different books!
Pay attention to the titles on each passport and notice how smartly the three passports are meant to attract three different reading segment of customers - kids, teens and adults.
I like the subtlety with which each ad ends - Go travel.
Car brand #Lexus recently launched their rain-sensing automatic windshield wipers in the market of South Africa. Such automatic windshield wipers are not new in the #automotive industry but the company wanted to show its effectiveness to potential car buyers in the markets of South Africa. So their ad agency M&C Saatchi came up with a witty print campaign where they put up some very popular rain songs in their ads but removed the word 'rain' from the lyrics of each of these songs to demonstrate the effectiveness of their wipers.
Very smart and gives out the message clearly.
Collins Stationery, a Scottish brand of stationery just achieved the milestone of celebrating 200 years of being in existence. To commemorate this occasion, the company came out with a commercial, walking people through its origins, its history and key achievements. It is a beautiful film, created through hand animation, using only #paper as a medium to tell the entire story.
The work was done by the #advertising agency Superunion, Singapore, and it just goes to show the power of simplicity and powerful #storytelling.
The Mayor of London, Sadiq Khan launched a campaign #LondonIsOpen in 2016 to show the residents of London as well as the world how open and welcoming London is and how there is no place for discrimination, irrespective of whichever country you come from.
Now, with #Brexit bringing in so much of uncertainty around the future of UK and its association with the European Union, there were concerns that people had regarding how open and welcoming London would be after Brexit.
To assure people about London, the Mayor continued with the campaign and this year came out with a video that is bold, edgy, creative, fun and all the other things that you would associate with London as a city.
The visuals are nice, the lyrics are peppy and overall it gives a very strong and positive feeling about London. hashtag
“Ensure that there are enough seconds dedicated to the product window”.
“You have to show consumption of the product and make it an integral part of the story”.
These are just some of the regular statements that an agency is used to hearing from the client, which the agency calls the client’s rants.
But these statements hold true when you are doing regular advertising for a product brand where the objectives are the usual marketing objectives of building awareness, generating trials and driving sales.
And then comes a time, a moment, an opportunity where a company decides to be courageous. It decides to break status quo, go against the conventional route of marketing and advertising and decides to launch a campaign with a thought and a philosophy that makes you sit back and reflect. It takes all the cultural and societal truths and weaves a story around those truths without making the story trivial by getting brands or products integrated into it like a force fit.
To understand what I am saying, let me share the new film from Nestlé India on their Corporate Campaign #ShareYourGoodness:
The beauty of the film is its simplicity and the power of this film hits one after some time. It makes one realize the importance of food in our lives and how sharing of food is beyond just a gesture. It is an act that transmits feelings and allows forming bonds for life. It makes one reflect on all the times when one has bonded over food and exchanged lessons on life over a plate of dinner or a cup of tea.
What is truly magical about this film is the fact that by taking food as the medium, this film talks about issues like: adoption, girl child and integrating people from North East into the fabric of a family and all of this is done quite seamlessly.
A campaign like #ShareYourGoodness would have been incomplete by just making a commercial of this thought. Nestlé India had to bring that thought alive through an act and Nestlé India chose the Mumbai Dabbawallas as a medium to activate this philosophy.
#ShareYourGoodness truly gained meaning when the Mumbai Dabbawallas were appreciated for the work that they do through a Goodness Box in gratitude for their unrelenting and selfless act throughout the year.
Despite being an employee of Nestlé India as well as a marketing professional, I would like to say Thank You to everyone involved in making this film and reminding us that Share Your Goodness does not have to be a tag line for a campaign but rather a Motto For Life.
