Dense commentary on social media, PR, marketing, advertising and branding.
Advertising is an awkward combination of fiction and non-fiction. To be interesting, it needs to use fictional elements that lead to suspension of disbelief on the part of the viewers. So, when Axe shows that women get magnetically attracted to the scrawny…
For the first time in the history of IPL (since 2008), we have two competing ad campaigns to entice us to consume the tournament in two different ways! This need did not arise till 2022 because the rights for both TV and…
Two Women’s Day 2023 campaigns by automobile companies that stood out for me, for vastly different reasons: Ford and Mercedes. Ford’s campaign, by the agency VMLY&R, was something of a crowd favorite, given the number of people I noticed sharing it on…
In November 2022, Pirate Ship, the cloud-based shipping software provider for small and medium-sized businesses, launched its first brand campaign made by the agency Mother. The narrative device is hilarious and audacious: People are shown to be in life-threatening distress (being abducted…
Update: Tata Sky did the same back in 2015, in a series of 13 interconnected ad films based on the same story, plot, and protagonists. Agency: Ogilvy. Playlist at the end of this post. — HDFC Life’s new campaign titled ‘The Missing…
Mivi’s new campaign was long in the making and feels eventual. We have gone through ‘Made in Germany’ and ‘Made in Japan’ TVs. ‘Made in the USA’ has long been an aspirational idea in India. But with recent geopolitical changes and the…
Swiggy’s Valentine’s Day 2023 ad film by the agency Talented is possibly* (see update at the end of this post) India’s first ad that uses the screenlife format. Screenlife is a visual narrative device that tells the story using a digital screen,…