Dense commentary on social media, PR, marketing, advertising and branding.
UPDATE: This idea by Burger King has been summarily obliterated by another brand 🙂 See the end of this post for the update. There are brands, reasons and situations where showcasing something not-so-pleasant, disgusting or nauseating in advertising may be useful to…
UPDATE: An earlier version of this post was titled, “Lay’s chips put a mouth on their packs. An Indian chips brand did it in 2016!”. The following is an additional context based on the new information. The rest of the post, as-is,…
I have been writing about the use of Indian regional languages (other than Hindi) in advertising a LOT. Here’s a full summary I wrote for . In continuation, here are 4 recent attempts from brands. 1/ Bajaj-Allianz Life Insurance It was a…
Note: I wrote this last night fully hoping for a reveal today/Friday. And the reveal happened today. If you are in Mumbai (and read either Hindustan Times or Mumbai Mirror), you may know the secret already, but if you are not in…
Ola has just launched in London. The news was out in the newspapers yesterday. And today, Ola has a splashy front-page ad proclaiming the same across 3 editions of The Times of India and 2 editions of Hindustan Times. We may have…
KFC wanted to launch its new Kentucky Burger in the Middle East. So their agency in that region, Memac Ogilvy & Mather recommended an intriguing idea: partner with 3 famous music artists in the region – Flipperachi, Moh Flow, and Shébani. Sounds…
July 8, 2015: Media reports widely about mysterious graffiti outside Shah Rukh Khan’s home, Mannat. The graffiti says, ‘Luv U SRK. C U on 15th’. Sounds like a gimmick? It is. July 9, 2015: Teaser of Shah Rukh’s next film, by Maneesh…