The highlight of the annual Goafest is the Abby awards given for advertising excellence. BrandWagon invited senior executives from the media and advertising industry to pick 3 sure winners in six categories?television, radio, print, out of home, online and media innovations.
Television
Aprurva Purohit
CEO, Radio City 91.1 FM
Brand: Cadbury Dairy Milk
Company: Cadbury
Agency: Ogilvy & Mather
Campaign: Cadbury Shubh Arambh. The films shows a girl at the bus-stop eating a bar of Cadbury Dairy Milk. A boy comes up and asks for a cube of the chocolate. Astonished, the girl asks if she knows him, to which he indicates in the negative. The girl then asks him why she should share her CDM. The boy explains that it’s auspicious to have something sweet before starting on a new endeavour. On this, the girl offers him a piece. He then asks her whether he can drop her back home. Nonplussed, the girl blushes. The VO then states, ?Shubh Aarambh. Kuch Meetha Ho Jaye?.
Expert Take: Superb casting and acting makes this ad stand out from the rest. The entire campaign, of course, has an extremely powerful strategy behind it of expanding category usage.
Brand: Idea
Company: Idea Cellular
Agency: Lowe Lintas
Campaign: Mobile Number Portability. The film opens with Abhishek Bachchan, the long standing brand ambassador of Idea Cellular traveling in a bus. He looks at a girl beside him, who seems to be on a call waiting with her respective telecom operator. Curious Bachchan asks the girl for how long has she been on hold? The girl replies for more than half an hour. Bachchan asks her why? The girl says ‘no idea’. Bachchan says ‘get idea’.
Expert Take: These ads managed to pick up the key issues plaguing mobile users and create a brilliantly executed campaign behind it. For a change, Abhishek does the ?ordinary man? act extremely well and using the punch line almost as a throwaway counter intuitively adds impact.
Brand: Coca Cola
Company: Coca-Cola India
Agency: McCann Erickson
Campaign: The ad opens on Kalki Koechlin in a bus trying to attract Imraan Khan’s attention. Koechlin spots a huge Coca-Cola hoarding. As Khan looks at her, she pretends to pull out the bottle and take a sip from it. She then offers the same invisible bottle to Khan who pretends to gulp down the entire drink. When Koech-lin looks at him disappointingly, he takes out a real Coca-Cola bottle from his bag and offers it to her. The film ends with the tag line ?Coke khule toh baat chale?.
Expert Take: Beautifully rendered. Using retro songs with such a contemporary take, the entire script and the unique production makes one want to watch the ad repeatedly ? which is something one certainly can’t say for most ad campaigns!
MEDIA INNOVATIONS
Nadia Chauhan
Joint Managing Director &
Chief Marketing Officer, Parle Agro
Brand: Hippo
Company: Parle Agro
Agency: Creativeland Asia
Campaign: Hippo Online Tracker. Hippo used Twitter to do something that it has never been expected to: Act as an inventory tracking interface.
To get consumers to track stock by the hour and report to the sales and distribution teams, Hippo got its followers on Twitter to send it a tweet whenever they were unable to find Hippo packs at a store.
A core cell was set up to collect and disburse this information to the respective sales teams who restocked the store within hours. Hippo also reciprocated this with incentives and real-time stock replenishment updates on Twitter.
Expert Take: To support Hippo?s nascent sales and distribution system, Hippo simply asked its followers to inform it whenever they can’t find the Hippo range of products at a store. It promised to replenish stocks within hours at these locations immediately. At Hippo?s behest people tweeted in from supermarkets, hypermarkets and local shops. It?s a perfect example of using social media not only for consumer engagement but also for using it to solve a technical problem such as sales and distribution.
Brand: Audi A8L
Company: Audi
Agency: Creativeland Asia
Campaign: The campaign includes a film in 3D, a website dedicated solely to A8L which is also in 3D, a brochure in 3D, print ads and various outdoor and on-ground activities. The 3D ad clip shows a man suspended in space as the Audi A8 L assembles around him. The idea here was to indicate that the pinnacle of human evolution, the need for self actualization, is represented by brand Audi.
Expert Take: The Audi A8 L integrated 3D campaign was a brilliant idea that was beautifully executed across media. The campaign really made the car come alive. The experience across touch points was stunning. Every medium was used in a way that is different from what we are accustomed to.
Brand: Dove
Company: Hindustan Unilever
Agency: Ogilvy & Mather
Campaign: Pantene had launched an outdoor campaign and without revealing the brand name it said ‘mystery shampoo’. Dove completely took over the Pantene campaign by launching an outdoor campaign and strategically placing them over or near the Pantene campaign saying ‘There is no mystery. Dove is the number one shampoo’.
Expert Take: I loved the way Dove hijacked Pantene?s Mystery shampoo teaser campaign. That was some quick thinking and great media planning. Be it outdoor or print, Dove cleverly exploited every medium.
Ashwin Padmanabhan
Business Head, Big Street, RBNL
Brand: Volkswagen Vento
Company: Volkswagen
Agency: Mudra
Campaign: A small audio clip was inserted in The Times of India newspaper. So everytime someone unfolded it, the audio clip would play, thereby giving crisp information about the Vento.
Expert Take: One of the best print ads of 2010, it immediately grabbed the attention of readers! It was a heady mix of innovation and technology, an ad nobody could ignore. You can love it or hate it but you can?t ignore it!
Brand: Indian Premier League
Company: Board of Control for Cricket in India (BCCI)
Agency: Ogilvy & Mather
Campaign: Eight different print ads were released on the opening day of IPL3 in Hindustan Times and Mid-Day. Each ad depicted the captain of a different IPL team, thus making each front page a collector’s item. The ads capture the mood at the stadia, taking forward the message that nothing can beat the experience of watching an IPL match at the stadia.
Expert Take: The IPL print ad is visually extremely powerful and the concept of using a packed cricket stadium is novel and appealing. I would say it is one of the most creative print ads of 2010 as it conveys action, emotion and a sense of excitement.
Brand: Conquerer Paper
Company: Tranasia Papers
Agency: Taproot
Campaign: The product has been used in the ad in an ingenious manner as the ad is made out of rolled Conqueror paper. The vibrancy of colours which has been used in the ad is what India is known for.
Expert Take: The beauty of this ad lies in its simplicity and the fact that it truly captures the spirit of India by using an array of Conqueror coloured rolls to create mosaic-like portraits of a spiritual guru, a royal Rajput and a Kathakali dancer, thus honouring India?s rich culture.The extraordinary and catchy tagline , ?Celebrating a decade in the land of a million hues? is sheer genius.
Radio
Ashish Bhasin
Chairman, India & CEO, South East Asia, Aegis & Director, Posterscope-APAC
Brand: Gujarat Tourism
Company: Tourism Corporation of Gujarat Ltd
Agency: Ogilvy & Mather
Campaign: When Amitabh Bachchan talks, every Indian is all ears. And in this radio spot he shares his divine experience at Somnath temple in Gujarat. The spot ends with Bachchan requesting listeners to pay their respect at thetemple and spend some time in Gujarat.
Expert Take: Clear message, Amitabh?s delivery and great linkage with scenes from iconic movies such as Zanjeer, ensure high brand recall.
Brand: Axis Mutual Fund
Company: Axis Mutual Fund
Agency: Metal Communications
Campaign: The spot opens with the voice of a guy who agrees to take his girlfriend to Bahamas but does not give any dates. The girl threatens to leave him if a date is not fixed soon. A voiceover explains how investing in Axis Income Saver mutual fund can help you get what you wanted.
Expert Take: This ad links the brand promise with humour in a delightful way.
Brand: ICICI ‘Old Woman’
Company: ICICI Bank
Agency: Ogilvy & Mather
Campaign: A chatty old lady is handed over her bank statement by a ICICI Bank executive. As she tries to recollect what she was talking about, the executive suggests that she was saying something about a computer. The lady happily continues talking to the man who does not mind missing his lunch to be courteous to a customer.
Expert Take: The radio ad has good synergy with the TV ad taking the brand message forward.
Out of home
Dinesh Gulati
President ? Marketing, The Indian Express
Brand: Bigg Boss 4
Company: Colors
Agency: Mudra Primesite
Campaign: Various platforms were used in extremely innovative ways?pre-launch Big Boss Roving Eye at two prime locations in Mumbai (Mahim causeway and Juhu), a number of buses carrying the Big Boss Roving Eye (live cameras ) and the hanging Big Boss sample flat with a balcony and a man on a hoarding. All ensured that the message “You are being watched” gets maximum eyeballs.
Expert Take: The entire campaign done by Mudra was extremely creative and ensured that the campiagn broke the clutter in the market and got a high share of voice
in the market. Not only in Mumbai, the campaign was seen in many other cities at the same time ensuring a perfect carpeting effect. Very creative and innovative use of platforms to ensure high visibility.
Brand: Polo & Beetles
Company: Volkswagen
Agency: Mudra
Campaign: The OOH campaign on VW Polo in parking lots talking about ground clearance is a smart way of displaying product features to the target audience. Similarly the Bettle?s “Curves are back” campaign uses speedbreakers to highlight the Beetle message. Again, the Beetle cluster of billboards ads indicating key features of Beetle was a high-decibel campaign.
Expert Take: VW has always stood out for its intelligent advertising. This campaign has again proved how different ambient media can be used to create the right effect for the brands. Another intelligent campaign from VW has been VW Phaeton that speaks about cornering lights in the billboard itself with the special light effects. This is another innovative way of using the outdoor media to communicate product features effectively.
Brand: Tata Photon
Company: Tata Teleservices
Agency: Milestone Brandcom
Campaign: A larger than life replica of the Tata Photon Plus device was designed and fitted onto the facade of a commercial building (Crystal Plaza) that houses several SMEs in Andheri, Mumbai to promote the idea that Tata Photon ‘powers businesses’. A second Tata Photon creative in LED lights signalled the arrival of a ‘high-speed metro train’ in the form of the Tata Photon. The creative was placed at a most premium location in Bangalore (Hosur Road) and the campaign was designed to depict the Tata Photon message of ‘Get Speed, Get Time’.
Expert Take: The reason it stands out as an outdoor campaign is due to the choice of the location combined with the parallel that the creative cleverly drew ? a fast approaching high speed train, speed being the number one attribute of the product. As for the Mumbai campaign, the USP of the campaign is its sheer innovation and audacity to give a whole new meaning to ‘powering businesses while on the move’.
Online
Anupam Vasudev
EVP, marketing &
communication, Star India
Brand: Virgin Mobile
Company: Virgin Mobile
Agency: Bates 141
Campaign: India Panga League. A series of mini films which were more spoofs were launched online showcasing the regional fight between the original IPL (Indian Premier League) fans.
Expert Take: The campaign had a very strong viral leg to it which is absolutely critical for a strong digital campaign. It identified with the youth and also built on the core brand values of Virgin Mobile.
Brand: Parle Hippo
Company: Parle Agro
Agency: Creativeland Asia
Campaign: Hippo Online Tracker. Hippo used Twitter to act as an inventory tracking interface. Hippo got its followers on Twitter to send it a tweet whenever they were unable to find Hippo packs at a store. A core cell was set up to collect and disburse this information to the respective sales teams who restocked the store within hours. Hippo also reciprocated this with incentives and real-time stock replenishment updates on Twitter.
Expert Take: This was a very interesting way of connecting with consumers with strong business results.
Brand: Sach Ka Samna ‘Television’s moment of truth’
Company: Star Plus
Agency: MindShare
Campaign: With different political parties calling for a ban on the reality show Sach Ka Saamna, Star Plus had to cut down on the TV promos. Star now needed to find a way to promote the show. The solution was to create a viral in the format of an online test which a website visitor could mail to her friends. At the end of the game, the viewer would be informed that it was a prank. The goal behind the online game was to familiarise the audience with the show and its concept. Result: More than 1 million views for the viral translated into 3.4 TVR for the show.
Expert Take: A very strong viral leg. It helped explain the concept of the show in a humourous way.