Dense commentary on social media, PR, marketing, advertising and branding.
A recent Pepsi 7UP ad (by DDB Mudra) showed a man seated in the ladies’ seat on a public bus. A young woman wanted that seat, and just as she arrived near that seat, the man feigned to be asleep (even as…
Related reading: Personification as a creative device in advertising Anthropomorphism, or making inanimate/nonhuman objects talk, emote, or behave like humans is a fairly popular creative device in advertising. There are various degrees of this trope… like giving human features to inanimate objects,…
“Should I do LinkedIn polls more often? They get me a lot of engagement!” “What’s the best time to post on Instagram in India?” “No one clicks on my links on Twitter anymore. Should I do a thread, instead?” I get asked…
Related read: Builder says (in an interview with Moneycontrol) it reached out to Air India after the first unsolicited ad that mentioned their name, and Air India, according to Builder, did not insist on canceling the campaign’s next stage (app reveal). This…
There’s a famous Halwa shop in Tirunelveli, called Iruttu Kadai Halwa. ‘Iruttu Kadai’ literally means ‘dark shop’, and refers to the shop owner’s chosen tradition of selling the halwa in an outlet (the only outlet) with minimal light! Similarly, there’s a famous…
Imagine this: a 70-year-old man is walking down the market wearing an interesting t-shirt. The T-shirt has the text, ‘My son is the writer of (name of a movie). Do watch the movie!’. Most of the people walking around him see the…
A decade ago, while I was traveling back from Mumbai to Bengaluru after a work trip, I got a call from my boss (the India head) while I was in a cab (from the airport). He told me that the regional office…