Dense commentary on social media, PR, marketing, advertising and branding.
I have no awareness of the American insurance brand Travelers, except for the fact that my boss at Social@Ogilvy, John Bell had joined them as the digital head after he quit Ogilvy. So, when I stumbled on this new campaign by Travelers,…
You Click. We Plant. That’s the simple and promising premise of Tata Projects’ Green Thumb initiative. In its 4th year, the initiative is extremely well-intended. After all, any number of trees being planted is always welcome. And when they promise to plant…
Alcohol brands have always done ‘Drink Responsibly’ campaigns. Despite the fact that it flies against the consumption of those products. Their aim is to maximize consumption, but they know that it should not be at the detriment of the user. A most…
Having tracked plagiarism in music since the late 90s (, though defunct, and I did a 42-weeks series on the topic for Filmcompanion, called Carbon Copy), I have always been interested—and fascinated by similarity of ideas in all forms of art. Hence,…
I really loved this campaign for BIC pens, by VMLY&R, Sao Paulo, Brazil. I recall Flair using the ‘longest writing pens’ plank to talk about how long the pen lasts, using ‘Writes upto 10,000 meters’ as a context for us to understand…
Remember what happened on November 8, 2016? Of course, you do! Remember November 9, 2016? You may, or may not, but Vijay Shekhar Sharma surely would. That was the day Paytm took out splashy front page ads thanking the Indian Prime Minister…
On June 24th, Priyanka Chopra shared a video on Instagram (besides Twitter), along with a lengthy note endorsing American skincare brand Obagi. What was conspicuously missing is a disclosure that it was a paid promotion. Priyanka could still be Indian (NRI? I…