Dense commentary on social media, PR, marketing, advertising and branding.
On September 9th, I received an email from ICICI Bank. Now, ICICI sends me tons of promotional emails, across the bank and ICICI Prudential, and fearing that some important email might land in the spam box if I mark one as spam,…
Do you know that mathematicians around the world are obsessed over one brand of chalk? Just Google ‘chalk mathematicians’ and you would stumble, from multiple sources, the astonishing story of how mathematicians are hoarding on a Japanese brand of chalk! The chalk…
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…