Dense commentary on social media, PR, marketing, advertising and branding.
The comic strip format has long been associated with fun and entertainment. If a serious topic is communicated via this format, the assumption generally is that it is meant for younger audiences, or it is toning down the seriousness of the content….
Back in July, when Voltas Beko launched their new TV ad for dishwashers (made by Wunderman Thompson), there was widespread vocal dismay in the way the communication framed it as a woman’s product. The company had to announce in a interview that…
There’s a lot of talk about ‘being authentic on social media’. And ‘authenticity’ being the only way to build a personal brand via social media, mainly because of the many ways people seem fake/unreal on online platforms. I do not fully agree…
Apple has been using the privacy narrative for a few years, in its advertising. Apple is perhaps the only company in the entire world that could convincingly (ok, reasonably convincingly, given that they have a deal with Google for a lot of…
If you are old enough to wonder about such things, I’m reasonably sure you would have wondered why ads for menstrual hygiene products (like sanitary pads or tampons) use blue-colored liquid instead of red to demonstrate the product efficacy. The color and…
Since the pandemic went berserk in March (at least in India) and the lockdowns ensued (in many parts of the world), we have all come to depend on the inevitability of the internet a lot more. There is no other way to…
In communications, we could use ‘easter eggs’ as a way to convey a second, almost hidden-in-plain-sight level something else besides the crux. Puns are one example – the sentence could read in a normal way but the puns add a second context…