IN LINE WITH ONLINE

By M H Ahssan

Mobile and Internet advertising firms discover small businesses for growth

While it is still recession for most advertisers and agencies are trying hard to cut costs, those dealing with digital advertising have a reason to smile. Digital advertising is the next big thing as it is measurable, focused, and cost effective, a great combination for micro small and medium enterprises (SMEs) to cash in on. Aashish Solanki, founder of Bangalore-based Net Bramha Studio is one of the companies, which does digital advertising for SMEs and builds their online presence from scratch.

"We work for small companies like Game Kraver, My Piction and Nemo Solutions, helping position them and conducting viral marketing campaigns. It helps them get better RoI," says Solanki. Harsha J is grateful to the downturn. As advertising budgets come under intense scrutiny in a depressed market, his Bangalore-based web marketing firm Adventure is making the best of the situation, convincing his clients to increase their online and mobile spends. Adventure designs web-based marketing material such as emailers and websites, along with developing and running Google AdWords campaigns for its clients.

"Almost two-thirds of our clients are thinking differently now. Earlier the focus was more on conventional mass media but they gradually realised that online and mobile advertising could be effective and measurable modes to reach their desired target group. We have seen a growth of at least 10-15% over the last couple of months," he says. It's not hard to see why. Compared to television, print, radio and even out-of-home advertising, Internet and mobilebased communication is more easily measurable and interactive. And while the share of such media in overall budgets is still small, it's growing significantly.

Recently Lintas Media Group and Pinstorm organized a panel discussion called 'Is pay-for-performance advertising the answer?' where the members were of the opinion that online advertising is a boon to the SME sector. The main reason for this view is the lower cost of advertising and the wider reach that it offers.

Digital marketing firm Pinstorm estimates that the mobile advertising industry including WAP and SMS has grown from Rs 20 crore in 2006-07 to Rs 50 crore in 2008-09. And while the digital advertising industry has not observed a dip, its current rate of growth at 24% is slower than the anticipated 35%. According to Mahesh Murthy of Pinstorm, "the share of online advertising for small Indian companies is 25% and is growing at 10% year-on-year."

Accountability is one of the biggest draws of such tech-based media. "Today every advertiser wants to know where each dollar is being spent and the result of it. In a recessionary time, advertisers move money to more measurable mediums," says Naveen Tewari, CEO of mKhoj, a mobile advertising firm started two years year ago. "We have grown 10 times in the last six months and expanded to 25 countries."

"Around 70-80% of a brand's audience can be reached on the Internet and hence it is up to advertisers, agencies and publishers to churn out innovative ways to address the users effectively. Only then we can hope that the medium can grow faster," agrees Rahul J Jethva, CEO of Spring Communications. "There's a 30-35% cost saving in advertising online compared to advertising in print," says Subhash Lal of Thinkingdesign, a Delhi-based startup. Launched five months ago by Lal, an NID graduate, the firm provides brand identity, language and strategy services to clients in the fashion, home decor and jewellery businesses.

"The downturn forced three or four really good clients to put their plans on hold; others, started insisting on web advertisements instead of print to save on costs," Lal says. "Even 3G is round the corner, which would increase activity in this space. With the mobile handset functioning almost like a computer and more user friendly applications available, advertisers see an opportunity for their brands here," says Prathap Suthan, NCD, Cheil Communications.

According to Vinod Thadani, regional head, mobile, Group M, South Asia, "The reach and engagement of mobile is an important factor for this medium. Initially it was used more by the finance and travel companies but in 2008 other sectors like lifestyle, apparels and FMCG also joined in. At least 10-15% of digital ad budgets are now planned for the mobile medium," says Thadani.

Suresh Narasimha, co-founder of TeliBrahma, a provider of Bluetooth-based communication service, says the penetration of Bluetooth-enabled mobile phones is increasing. He says acceptance of Bluetooth advertising is 10-15% in retail locations, 30-40% in hangout places and more than 60% in events. "There is more value in digital media, and brands can benefit if they can integrate planning and measurement," he says. The company itself does a lot of online advertising for its own brand.

Online advertising is also fast catching up among the biggies. Samsung's director marketing for South-West Asia YY Kim who's sold on the benefits of this new age medium says: "Online advertising works very well for our technology-based products like Mp3 players, notebook PCs, mobile phones, LCD and Plasma TVs. Our online campaign for notebook PCs in November 2008 was a success. It doubled visitor traffic to one lakh in the following month," he says. Currently, online advertising is 1% of Samsung's ad spend in India and is likely to grow to 2% this year.

5 Ideas for Creative Customer Advertising

You can’t do business in the modern world without effective advertising. It is a necessary evil that is costly and time consuming. Effective ads have the potential to increase your business reach and your revenue stream.

No matter what the size of your business, you certainly can’t afford to let your customer advertising efforts slide in any way. Developing effective ads takes a combination of strategy and creativity. Here are five tips that can help you enhance your customer advertising campaign:

Shoot for a target.

Effective advertising begins with understanding the individuals who purchase your products and services, or those who have the potential to do so. Identify and shoot for a target audience with your customer advertising rather than creating a campaign that is more broad or generic.

Focus on unique strengths.

Customer advertising is a competitive endeavor. You need to evaluate what the competition is offering and focus on what you have that they don’t. The unique strengths of your business might include special product lines that aren’t available in the industry, customizable products or service packages, or a customer loyalty program. Highlight these types of strengths in your ads.

When and where.

Effective ads are strategically located in the right place at the right time. The right places are determined largely by your target audience. Realize that your target audience is diverse and don’t limit your customer advertising to one medium, such as television or radio. Rotate the timing of your ads to reach a broader audience.

Measure results.

You won’t know how effective advertising is unless you implement a tracking and measurement system. One way to do this is by incorporating coupons into print ads, therefore allowing you to track where customers saw your effective ads.

Another way is by including a statement like, “Mention this ad and get an extra 10% discount.” These tactics are extremely effective, and evaluating the results of your customer advertising initiatives is easier to measure if you use them.

Invest in the best.

Effective ads take time and money to develop. Customer advertising is the one area of your business budget that should not be cut, nor should it be trimmed or neglected in any way. Because customer advertising is ultimately what drives sales, look for ways to beef up your advertising budget regularly. Some advertising outlets these days also take more time than money.

Invest time in developing a Craigslist advertising campaign and make use of other free spaces, like community bulletin boards and word of mouth.

The ultimate goal of all these tips is to generate interest and get customers walking through your doors or visiting your website. Customer advertising is an ongoing process that must be revised, revisited and revamped on a regular basis to maximize effectiveness.

Fresh, new ads pique the interest of your existing consumer base and enhance the likelihood that a new business relationship will form with potential customers.

Human Bonds Make Ads Clinche Good Marketing

Relationships are fodder for advertisements. A slew of ads based on human bonds are fast catching viewers’ imagination. While marketing the product, they are also promoting family values, says SALONI BHATIA

Sample the recent advertisement where a couple tries to steal some moments of romance as the husband’s mother moves around the house, or the one where family members are cribbing about having to eat lauki. Take the case of another one where the husband confesses his love to his wife by giving her a chocolate. These are some ads which have underlined some sweet moments which typify our lives. The recent Cadbury Dairy Milk ad campaign has made an effort to underline the value of family in a person’s life.

Advertising professionals say that Cadbury ads have always been able to concoct some consumerism. Be it the recent ones where they are promoting the chocolate as a replacement for desserts or the “Pehli tareek hai” campaign, the brand has always known the pulse of the Indian people. Not only Cadbury’s, but other brands like Tanishq, Google Chrome and Airtel are harping on family and relationships to promote their brand.

What is it that’s attracting the attention of ad makers towards familial ties? “In a country like India, the concept of a family always works. What works in other nations might not work for the Indian viewers. For instance, the Australian Tourism Board recently made an advertisement showing the beauty of the nation and how it had been built. In the end it questioned tourists: ‘Where the hell are you going? This is the place to be.’ Compare this with the Incredible India ads which show how a tourist from Tokyo is helped by some Indians when she misses her bus or the ones where Aamir Khan is telling people to respect tourists and adhere to the traditional policy of ‘Athithi Devo Bhava’. Thus, in India, everything has to be toned down. In my view, depicting families gives the brand a wider reach,” says Chinmoy Bhowmick, art director with a leading advertising agency.

Adman Prahlad Kakkar is of the view that families have always been the focal point of advertising campaigns down the years. “Advertising is family-centric. In fact, 60 per cent of all ads are based on families. Family values are top of the mind when an ad is conceptualised. When a person spends money, he always buys something for his wife and children. In India, a father has the responsibility of keeping his family in mind. Thus, family has always reigned supreme,” he opines.

At a time when family values have hit a low ebb, these ads drive home the importance of togetherness. The recent Oreo campaign elucidates this. The “sandwich biscuit” announced its arrival with the ‘Twist, Lick, Dunk’ communication where a child asks his father to open the packet of biscuits for him. In the end, he snatches the biscuit from his father and licks the cream.

The agency behind the campaign, Interface Communication, did extensive research which pointed to the fact that mothers love the scenario where their children bond with fathers. The second edition of this campaign has introduced the concept of ‘Togetherness Time’ which was discovered from India’s first ‘Togetherness survey’.
It talked about how Indians looked at families spending time together.

The survey was an initiative by AC Nielsen and was conducted across six cities (Mumbai, New Delhi, Bengaluru, Chennai, Hyderabad and Kolkata). The survey revealed how modern-day parents rue the fact that they are not able to spend sufficient time with their children, given their hectic work schedules, and want to spend more time with their children.

“Through this, we encouraged parents to devote more time to their children. Advertising agencies bank on the aspect of guilt of parents. Since life is moving at such a fast pace, everybody is facing a time crunch,” says Namrata Patnaik, a copywriter with Interface Communications.

But doesn’t this amount to commercialisation of emotions. No, say advertising professionals. “We work according to a brief given by the client. Whenever we write a creative brief, we highlight the emotional or a functional benefit.

“And if the creative output is taking a leap on the emotional benefit, there’s nothing wrong in it. We, as individuals, are emotional and if the advertising strategy is harping on this basic characteristic, there is no harm,” says an account director with a leading advertising agency. Kakkar agrees: “Advertising is all about emotions and depicting perfection. You are not selling your wife or child to someone. In my view, it is not commercialisation.”

But what does the future holds for such ads? “Fashion revolves around in circles. Similarly, advertising has its own phase. There was a time when TV commercials had a jingle. Then, there was a time when children always featured in ad campaigns. Companies always want to play safe and focusing on families and relationships provides them with that option,” signs off Bhowmick.

‘Mutual Respect’: When 'Consumers' And' 'Brands' Collide

By Newscop
Group Managing Editor

FACE-TO-FACE: Shailesh Rao, vice president of Asia Pacific, the Americas and emerging markets for Twitter, sees himself as an educator and an evangelist. He did not know how much he would fit into this role until he arrived in India in 2007 as Google’s head for that country and discovered lack of understanding about the Internet. According to eMarketer, India is set to become Twitter’s largest market after the U.S. with a projected 40 million users by 2018, up from 17 million this year.

Twitter, says Rao, is powerful. It is a platform that enables a specific kind of communication and exchange, which is real time, public and conversational. Everybody on the planet is able to get value and use Twitter, he adds.

Advertising Ideas That Set You Apart!

By M H Ahssan

There's a lot of competition out there for agents. How can you set yourself apart from the crowd so that you are noticed? Take heart, there are some simple things that you can do that will have great impact! Read on.

This is the perfect time of year to look at your advertising and make some decisions. The first should be to develop a theme to your business. This is easiest done by a slogan. Take a look at where you came from, what you enjoy the most, what do your friends think of when they think of you, and what message do you want to convey. Let me give you some examples of what I am talking about.

I know of an agent that has worked with the flower growers in her community for years and wanted to capitalize on that when she went into real estate. Her slogan is “rooted in real estate.” Others capitalize on their experience and build a slogan around that, some it might be that they came from an architectural background and use a slogan such as “finding architectural gems for you.” The point I am making is to look at yourself and don't try the old stale, “professional service, etc.” Too many agents use this and the public doesn't read it any longer, let alone believe it. You need to have something that is a reflection of you.

Now that you have your theme or slogan. Use it! Put it in all your ads, on your business cards, on your flyers. Build an entire image campaign around it.

Next, you should format your ads so that they have the same “look.” Don't change the ad each week, you can change the content, but keep the format the same so that your clients immediately recognize it.

Do the same thing with your flyers or brochures for your properties. Keep the same format. You want agents to recognize your listings as well as consumers.

Use the same personal photo in each ad. Don't change your photo unless it is to emphasize a special holiday like you dressed up for Halloween; and have your photo updated every two years. Please, no glamour shots.

The rule of thumb in creating your ad today should be property first, agent second and company third. The client and property comes first always. The one thing I notice is that company names are getting smaller and smaller—why? If people are recognizing your ads, then they will also think of you when they drive by a sign or a building that has your company name on it. Let the company be an asset to you.

Classified ads are fabulous when you first take a listing. And, it costs very little. Call the next day after taking a listing and put a three-line ad in the classified section of your local newspaper to run for 3 or 4 days or until it can be in the company ad or a personal display ad. Buyers are looking at those ads!

Don't give too much away in your ad. Make them call you! Important words of advice: use the proper words for the property you are advertising. Don't call a house with a red tile roof a Cape Cod. Know what style the property is before you name the style in your ad or brochure. You lose credibility with buyers when you identify the style incorrectly.

Make your ad sound interesting. What do you like best about the property? What sounds better to you? “Charming 3 bedroom, 2 bath with large yard.” OR “Straight from grandma's attic and filled with charm.” Saying less is more in advertising. Classy ads don't have a lot of verbiage. If you can't think of anything to say, use one word descriptions such as, AWESOME, GRAND, INSPIRING VIEWS oops that's two words), EXCEPTIONAL, and so on. You will get calls with this type of ad if it accompanies a picture of the property.

NUMBER ONE RULE in advertising. Be Consistent! I left this till last so that it would be the last thing you think about after finishing this article. This is what will pay you big dividends.

BE CONSISTENT IN YOUR ADVERTISING.
BE CONSISTENT IN YOUR ADVERTISING.
BE CONSISTENT IN YOUR ADVERTISING.
You get it. Happy advertising!

Will Recession Change Online Advertising?

By Smrithi Khanna

Everyone’s searching for accountability and measurability across media to ensure their ad expenditure is giving results

Will the death knell sound for digital advertising as we know it? It’s ironic that even as digital is touted as a saviour in these stretched times, banner ads are increasingly coming under the scanner.

Some digital media specialists say the old formats of online display ads are too bland and easy to ignore, and will be expunged during economic crisis giving way to more rich media—interactive multimedia—and larger-format ads.

Everyone’s searching for accountability and measurability across media to ensure their ad expenditure is giving results. Digital advertising solutions provider Eyeblaster Inc.’s India and GCC (six Gulf Cooperation Council countries) managing director Raghu Seelamsetty says there is already a move towards more rich media advertising, and as bandwidth improves, we will see an increase in video ads. His reasoning: Rich media is more effective than standard banners because of its inherent ability to measure interactions—much more than just a click-through ad. You can measure every interaction and the real time of engagement with the rich media ad. For example, in video ads, you can know exactly how many people saw the video and which part of it, since people do not step out to the kitchen in the middle of an Internet video ad (unlike television ads).

Measurability combined with the deep analytics which rich media provides will act as a catalyst for advertisers to move online.

Rich media may also address the issue that site publishers and brand advertising may actually be working at cross purposes. Observes Seelamsetty: “The most effective direct response campaigns tend to come from media occasions in which consumers are less engaged. This is because they are more willing to take time out to respond when they are less involved in the media interaction.”

In the context of online, publishers are shifting their focus to providing engaging content to keep the viewer on the page for a longer time rather than generating as many impressions as possible. People are far less likely to click on a banner ad when they are immersed in the content of a site than when they are merely browsing through a site to pass the time. Therefore, the ability rich media provides to interact with the ad without leaving the page is crucial.

Some digital specialists at ad agencies, however, underline that most of the poor banner ad outcomes are a result of bad planning. Prasanth Mohanachandran, executive director, digital services, OgilvyOne Worldwide, India, points out how simple reach-frequency metrics and creative rotation principles are not employed for most campaigns. His point: The banner is not dead. Bad creative is.

This is true of every medium, especially in times such as these when advertising is largely driven by return on investment. The simple banner still provides the highest opportunity to see among all variants and, with a good call-to-action it still provides excellent results on a cost-per-click or a cost-per-engagement basis in India.

Improved infrastructure and technology allow advertisers today, to use richer formats in those conventional flat banner spaces—but rich media too, delivers only with good creative backing, says Mohanachandran. He predicts newer formats such as interactive video coming into play sooner and contextual advertising witnessing exponential growth next year.

If banner ads don’t change format, advertisers could move some of their display ad budgets to online ad networks and direct marketing. Says Roy de Souza, founder and chief executive of global ad serving network Zedo Inc.: “Some advertisers who are watching their budgets are starting to really ask if brand advertising on the Internet is working. Brand advertisers are asking this, not direct marketers. And it will definitely affect India, too.”

He points out how direct marketers such as Makemytrip.com can track exactly how many ads they have to buy to sell a ticket. They can use the ad server to track how many people saw the ad, how many people clicked on the ad and went to the website and booked a ticket on it.

In contrast, it is more difficult to track the success of brand advertising. An ad server such as Zedo has no way of recording whether a person who walked into a shop chose Samsung because he saw a lot of Samsung ads on the Internet.
So, what’s next for display? Roy predicts bigger ad formats gaining ground for brand advertisers. For example, ads on top of the page that cover up what the reader is reading until the user closes the ad. These ads are big and visible and brand advertisers like them.

Also, formats which are visible for longer will gain ground. Usually, as a user scrolls down the page the ad will be left at the top and the user will no longer see it. By making the ad scroll down the page as the user scrolls down the page, the ad will be visible longer.

Exclusive: Polls solace for media

By M H Ahssan

Newspapers & News Channels To Attract 70% of The Ad Spend, Internet Canvassing Too Picks Up

Rising Decibel levels accompanying elections may be an unwelcome din for many, but for the country’s media sector, reeling under a crippling advertising downturn, that din could be music to its ears. The April-May general elections may extend a muchneeded lifeline to the battered media sector, particularly news channels, which is struggling to cope with dwindling revenues as companies cut back on advertising in a slowing economy.

Media planners say political parties alone could spend up to Rs 800 crore over the next two months on communications — what a top advertiser like Hindustan Unilever spends in an entire year — providing a crucial breather to the media sector. The total spend this election is estimated to be more than double of the amount spent last time.

“There is definitely an increase in spending by political parties on news channels because of high viewership. News channels continue to be a cost-effective medium to advertise,” says Chintamani Rao, CEO of Times Global Broadcasting, which runs leading English news channel Times Now.

Media stocks, which have lost a lot of ground over the past one year, have started climbing in anticipation of the expected sharp rise in their advertising revenues. Most media stocks gained more than 10% in the past one week.

One media planner, who requested not to be named, estimated that the BJP alone plans to spend Rs 200-250 crore on its advertising campaign distributed across a raft of platforms ranging from television to print to radio, while the bill may be slightly lower for the Congress at Rs 150-180 crore. Together, these two parties will account for more than half the overall advertising spending by all parties.

Political parties in India are increasingly packaging themselves and their leaders as brands, emulating similar trends in the west, notably in the United States where a combination of slick marketing and innovative fund raising catapulted Barack Obama from relative obscurity to the White House.

Some parties, especially the Congress and the BJP, have engaged established media buying firms to work for them through the election season, a change from the past wherein big media buying agencies worked for political parties only on ad-hoc basis. While advertising spend by Indian political parties will not be a patch on the billion-dollar-plus spending typically seen in US presidential elections, media experts say it is still a welcome additional source in difficult times and the election season usually has other significant spin-off benefits.

“Every election year in the West, media industry’s advertising revenues show high doubledigit growth. This may now become a trend with the Indian media industry as the advertising pie is expected to grow,” says consulting firm AT Kearney’s head for media and retail practice, Debasish Mukherjee.

Incredible India: When public sector advertising turned savvy

By M H Ahssan

If the recent Lok Sabha elections are any proof, then no matter how great an advertising agency is and how lavishly the client spends, there is always a sarkaari look to public sector advertising.

Small wonder when the Incredible India campaign was launched, it came as a welcome change from the fuddy-duddy public sector advertising.

The man at the centre of the campaign is Amitabh Kant, who was a joint secretary in the tourism ministry then. He is also the one to have steered the 'God's Own Country' campaign for Kerala for several years.

In his recent book, Branding India -- An Incredible Story, Kant chronicles the story of Incredible India, one of the most awarded and successful destination campaigns worldwide.

Kant begins with the domestic tourism scenario in the backdrop of the 9/11 attacks in the US in 2001. It was a time when tour operators thought there was nothing that could boost consumer demand.

"Global tourism saw a sharp decline... countries like Thailand, Singapore and Malaysia had sharply cut their advertising, promotion and marketing budgets," he writes.

Kant points out that till 2002, India had opened 18 tourism offices abroad, yet none of these gave a clear and singular positioning for India. "One foreign office called it 'Spiritual India', another termed it 'Cultural India', and the third termed it 'Unbelievable India'.

The cliched visuals, the saffron clad sadhus and rope tricks performed amidst crowds..." he laments, "did nothing to reflect the changes India was going through."
That's when a vision statement was drawn out to promote India as a "premier holiday destination for high-yielding tourists".Grey Worldwide and Wieden+Kennedy were roped in as key advertising agencies for the campaign.

Perhaps one of the best chapters in the book is the one where Kant draws from his experience in Kerala and describes the wrong flight of the state's tourism in the 90s, which was punctuated by high volume, low value tourism -- "A solitary ITDC hotel, mass tourist arrivals in the form of garbage collectors from Manchester and cobblers from London contributing not more £15 a night."

The tourism ministry then decided to do away with mass tourism and soon products exclusive to Kerala were promoted to the affluent traveller -- the backwaters, ayurveda, kettuvallams (houseboats), the tree house, butterfly holidays, and traditional cuisines became the rallying points.

"How can India's first communist state be called 'God's Own Country'? There was no end to criticism," he writes. The turning point came when after a series of familiarisation tours with tour operators and travel writers, the National Geographic Traveller featured Kerala among 'fifty destinations of a lifetime'.

In subsequent chapters, Kant describes other tourism makeovers -- Ajanta Ellora, Kumbalgarh, Mahabalipuram and Hardwar -- and also throws light on parallel growth stories such as low carrier airlines, enhanced air connectivity, online travel portals and growing macro-economic confidence about India.

Kant admits that branding a destination is a multi-sectoral challenge. "I was dealing with home ministry for visas, state governments for taxi drivers, there were challenges in customs and immigration, tour operators, ASI sites -- all of them have to become your brand ambassadors," the author states. This was the backdrop when a parallel campaign -- 'Atithi Devo Bhava' -- was conceived.

Indeed, the book effectively conveys the importance and greatness of the Incredible India campaign, but it also gives a feeling that the campaign was too dependent on the success of 'God's Own Country'.One may also feel that the book -- designed stylishly by Wieden+Kennedy's V Sunil -- underplays the role of advertising's contribution to the 'Incredible India' campaign.

Lines such as 'An island a day, keeps the doctor away. Vitamin Sea'for Andaman islands; 'Not all Indians are polite, hospitable and vegetarian,' to talk about the Royal Bengal tiger, and 'One day, man will travel at the speed of thought. Pity,' to describe a calm meditative journey through Kerala's backwaters, are indicative of not just the tourism ministry's welcome savviness as a client, but also of a bureaucracy agreeing to promote Brand India in a slick manner.

True, Incredible India is a rare instance of savvy public sector advertising, which dared to poke fun at the country's glorious self.

Ad-ing Up Losses

By M H Ahssan

As ads thin out, media firms look at other revenue sources

Dependent as it is on advertising revenues, the media and entertainment industry is among the worst hit in the slowdown. Advertisers have been trimming their budgets, and projections for ad revenue for the current financial year vary from no-growth to de-growth of 10 per cent. As the first quarter results trickle in, news organisations and entertainment channels are facing the thick end of the stick despite companies’ efforts to par down their costs.

The converse is also true. Those media companies that are not entirely dependent on advertising revenue, and have managed to diversify to garner other sources of revenue, have bucked the trend as Sun TV and, to some extent, Zee Entertainment (ZEEL) have shown. (Some of these media companies are competitors of ABP, which publishes Businessworld.)

Among the biggest disappointments in the first quarter results has been TV18. Performing below analyst projections, TV18 reported revenues of Rs 107 crore, an operating loss of Rs 4.2 crore and a net loss of Rs 40.6 crore as compared to last year’s Q1 loss of Rs 5.3 crore (see ‘Grim Situation’). Though the company’s flagship channel, cnbc, is the industry leader, this did translate into higher ad revenues, and income from the core news operations declined 35 per cent to just Rs 57 crore, while the net loss for this segment was Rs 28.3 crore. Unfortunately, its new media operations — Web 18 and Newswire18 — continued showing net losses of Rs 8.6 crore and Rs 1.4 crore, respectively, despite growth in revenues. Infomedia18, the print segment of the company that has always been something of an Achilles Heel, also dragged the company down with a net loss of Rs 2.4 crore. After a phase of robust growth, TV18 has had to face a losing streak with 2008-09 ending with a net loss of Rs 170 crore.

With the launch of Times Group’s new business channel, ET Now competition will only increase for CNBC. There are other issues too. An IDFC-SSKI report, authored by analyst Nikhil Vora, sees problems ahead, with TV18 continuing to fund gestation losses of Web18 and Infomedia18, a high net debt of Rs 850 crore and limited options to unlock value, given the group’s complex structure.

The silver lining for Network18 is its group company IBN18 posting a 36 per cent growth in revenue of Rs 57 crore. This was mainly driven by Viacom18’s channels Colors and MTV, which garnered Rs 106 crore in revenues. As per the revenue sharing arrangement, these two channels contributed around 34 per cent to IBN18’s kitty this quarter, helping it to trim net losses to Rs 7.2 crore from Rs 21 crore last year.

Ad Revenues Stumble
NDTV’s results too are nothing to write home about, but analysts have noted that the company has trimmed costs successfully. Though its consolidated revenues rose in the first quarter by 9.6 per cent to Rs 131 crore compared to Q1 of the previous year, NDTV turned in a net loss of Rs 81 crore. Revenue from news operations dipped 5 per cent to Rs 80.1 crore from the Q1 of the previous year, despite additional ad revenue from coverage of the national elections and the budget. An area of concern for the company is its English news channel NDTV falling behind Times Now, currently the No. 1. For the whole year, the company made an operating loss of Rs 484 crore; but with a stake sale of 26 per cent to NBC Universal in its entertainment business, NDTV Imagine, bringing in Rs 624 crore, the company could show a net profit of Rs 119 crore.

The only saving grace has been the performance of the entertainment vertical NDTV Imagine. It accounted for Rs 51 crore in revenue, an impressive 30 per cent growth from the previous quarter. The channel is at a strong No.4 position among Hindi entertainment channels.

“I don’t expect ad revenues to improve before October this year,” says Raj Nayak, CEO of NDTV Media, who markets airtime for NDTV as well as several other channels. “With an increasing number of channels, audiences have got more fragmented, while the advertising pie has remained stagnant.”

Nayak, also the president of the International Advertising Association, says: “The economics of almost every Hindi entertainment channel is a cash burn of Rs 85 crore and a recovery of Rs 35 crore per quarter. The question is: How do we make up the Rs 50-crore-hole every quarter?”

Sounding a warning note for the future, Zee Entertainment chairman Subhash Chandra says: “We do not see early signs of recovery in advertising revenues.”

Bucking The Trend
In comparison, Sun TV Network with diverse operations — from broadcasting to cable distribution, DTH and radio — showed a healthy growth of 17 per cent in revenue for FY09 touching Rs 1,008 crore and a net profit growth of 19 per cent at Rs 437 crore. The company is in the red by over Rs 300 crore for its DTH operations (Sun Direct), and its radio business net losses increased from Rs 40 crore to Rs 69 crore. Yet, it made up these hits from strong revenues from broadcasting and distribution.

Interestingly, Sun TV, with a virtual monopoly over the Tamil news and entertainment market is not dependent on the vagaries of advertising by following a business model that sells airtime slots to TV content companies at fixed rates leaving these production houses to market advertising time.

Though Q1 results for FY2010 are unavailable, the company for the last quarter of 2009, showed a total income growth of over 10 per cent to Rs 292 crore and profit-after-tax by 25 per cent to Rs 114 crore.

Zee Entertainment Enterprises (ZEEL), similarly, would have faced a bigger hit with advertising revenues falling 29 per cent; but the company managed to stay in the black with a strong performance in subscription revenues. For the first time, the company garnered higher revenue from subscription — at Rs 241 crore accounting for 51 per cent of total revenue — than it did from advertising that contributed Rs 198 crore or just 41 per cent of the kitty. Interestingly, DTH subscription revenue showed the strongest growth — 88 per cent at Rs 46.7 crore.

In times when generating ad revenues becomes more and more challenging, subscription revenue and other revenue sources should be explored more vigorously by media companies.

No Squeeze, No Wheeze, No Navel Please: How Indian Advertising Lost Puritanism?

By M H AHSSAN | INNLIVE

Between Doordarshan and the Advertising Standards Council of India, ads could not be remotely racy, but the agencies kept trying anyway.

In mid-1995, Tuffs shoes ran a half-page ad in the Times of India featuring supermodels Milind Soman and Madhu Sapre in the nude except for their shoes and a strategically positioned python wrapped around them. The brand, the advertising agency Ambience, the founder of the agency, Ashok Kurien, the models and all involved with the ad were taken to court for obscenity.

A Culture Of Brand Advertising In Hindi Cinema

It is difficult to ascertain when it really made an entry on the sly in the narrative; who fathered the concept and who the sperm donor was; as also who the carrier had been. But once it happened, it spread like an untreatable virus. And since the day it happened, no willing producer has escaped the consequences, positive or negative. Brand advertising has been in vogue in the West for as long as memory can travel (to the extent that Ford has actually set up offices in the US film capital) in the recent past, though it has been more prominently associated with the James Bond movies. 

From Sean Connery to Daniel Craig countless brands have found prominence in successive movies begging with a prominent display of Omega Seamaster Quartz Professional in Golden Eye (the manufacturers celebrated the 50th anniversary of their association with the franchise in early 2012 by introducing two new commemorative ones. And the latest being Heineken Beer which has replaced Martini as Bond’s favourite drink, helping the promoters of the otherwise finance-starved Skyfall, the 23rd spy thriller.

In India, it really seems to be a chicken or egg situation. Almost all the leading ladies of Hindi cinema have promoted Lux toilet soap from the 1950s onwards, though it never got transferred on the screen. The same goes with the heroes’ smoking or drinking. But the concept of a film star as brand advertiser can really be traced back to Amitabh Bachchan being the one who has continued to capitalise on it till this day, gradually carrying the virus to his younger contemporaries to the extent that many of them seem to attach more urgency and prominence to shooting for the consumer items than that for films. And why not, a day or a few hours of work brings in crores in return.

According to a recent finding, Aamir Khan now the most favourite brand consumer product ambassador cornering 18.8 per cent of the market share, followed by the original AB with 11.8 per cent, Shah Rukh Khan (10.5 per cent), Katrina Kaif and Priyanka Chopra (3.9 per cent each), and the husband-wife team of Aishwara-Abhishek Bachchan (3.6 per cent each) while all others get dumped together in the remaining 28.6 per cent. The leading sponsors, in order of merit, are Samsung, Airtel, Flipkart.com, Dell, Fastrack, Pepsi, Coca Cola, Levi’s, Soni and Apple all of them supposedly linked to younger users. Both sadly, and unfortunately, it is fast becoming the case of sublime to the ridiculous. Gone is the era of stalwarts (and the tradition seemingly continued till Rajesh Khanna in his last days succumbed to the lure and appeared in a commercial advertising Havell fans) ran miles from what even remotely appeared to be covert advertising. Now stars are available for almost anything, from a condom to real estate.

Coming to in-film advertising the most infamous in the recent history has been the naming of Zandu balm in a song from Debangg. As if that was not enough, a fake legal battle was generated to attain more mileage both to the film “which ensured 35 per cent growth in sales in that quarter for the brand”. IMPACT also quotes Sajay Moolankodan, Director, Go Fish Entertainment, saying: “Though it was not an integration, the song was an immediate hit and Zandu did major business of the film’s association to promote the song and the brand.”

Not that in-film advertising did not take place in Hindi films earlier but then it was more covert than overt. Subhash Ghai did it with great elan in Hero with the bicycle by the same name, and has continued to do so time and again, shamelessly or effortlessly is a subjective perception, like a substandard product called Paas Pass in Yaadein. It was blatant, and it showed though the same had not really been the case when Dev Anand covertly used the brand name of Garware naming it Garware Cup in a cricket match scene involving Aamir Khan in Awwal Number but refused all subsequent offers. Raj Kapoor only once used Rajdoot motorcycle in Bobby. The world knew his daughter was getting married to the scion of Escorts. Shah Rukh Khan drove in Santro, the camera focusing on the brand name in Phir Bhi Dil Hai Hindustani. In recent times, L’Oreal products, Christian Dior Couture were blatantly used by Sonam Kapoor in Aisha; Kareena Kapoor flaunted VAIO laptop in Bodyguard; monogrammed Louis Vuitton brief case in Kal Ho Naa Ho; Tanishq jewellery in Jodha Akbar.

There have also been instances of operation overkill, as was the case with the nearly two-dozen products structured into the narrative of RaOne. Reportedly, only Sony PlaySation could make some capital out of it. Dhoom had Hayabusa while Ek Tha Tiger had Salman Khan riding a Suzuki Gixxer cleverly integrated in some sequences. Parachute Hair Oil in Cocktail; Nimbuzz in Kya Super Cool Hain Hum, Mentos in Love Ka The End are some of the others from countless other products that found prominent place in films. None remained dissatisfied with the results. After Fashion (which publicised Sunsilk, Lenovo, Rebook, Kimaya) Madhur Bhandarkar has predictably used as many as eight different products in Heroine though he alone can tell what kind of money he got because Lakme, Monarch Universal, Head & Shoulders are in any case associated with Kareena Kapoor (had perhaps Aishwarya continued to be the heroine she would have promoted other brands). Also visible in Heroine would be Cera, Rupa, Jealous 21 Apparel.

The in-film advertising has really gained momentum in the past few years largely because of the instant publicity a brand gets, thanks to big stars presence, in films releasing simultaneously in 2000-odd theatres across the globe. Besides, it is not the beginning and the end as the product continues to get flashed across small screens months and years later through DVD’s and television telecast from various channels. To quote Harish Bijoor, head honcho at Harish Bijoor Consults Inc who sums up the concept brilliantly when he states: “Movie offers pre-segmented audiences. Those who watch movies in theatres are enabled audiences. 

They are willing to fork out as much as Rs 1,800 per couple per show (top-end multiplex) or as little as Rs 200 per couple per show (bottom-end theatre). These are enabled audiences who have entertainment money to splurge. These are impatient audiences as well, who will not want to wait for the movie to reach their television sets four to six months down the line. These are, therefore, buying and decision-making audiences. The benefits of advertising and appealing to such audiences are obvious. In-film advertising provides for this.”

Marketing & Politics - A Unique Combination Of 'Marriage'!

By Likha Veer | INNLIVE

SPECIAL FEATURE Should a political 'brand' communicate the same, clear message as brands in business? Just as a marketing organisation needs a clear picture of its target, Indian political parties need to recognise the changing realities in the political market place.

In the wildest of Dream, the founding father of Marketing would not have imagined such an innovative, creative, out of the box application of Marketing concept!! Yes, the readers of this blog are thinking right it is a unique marriage between Marketing and Politics. 

Ever since politics has become synonymous with the power, marketing has been used widely by politician for own advantage. In fact, now a days political pundit is hiring multitude of professionals to work for their cause in fact marketing has been used increasingly in politics.

Social Media Endorsements: Where Will Marketers Draw the Line?

What if advertisers found a stealthy new way to get their pitch across — a form of messaging perceived more as a friendly recommendation than hard sell? In an over-crowded media environment, marketers would surely flick to such an innovation.

And they have. In the nascent realm of social media influencing, paid endorsements are burgeoning. Celebrities and other influencers present their taste and choices in the marketplace as nothing more than the act of sharing tips with fans and the public — even while failing to make clear that, often, they are being paid to do so.

Despite Hype, World Cup May Disappoint Advertisers

A treat awaits television as well as online cricket viewers across the world with a busy cricket season. The Cricket World Cup kicks off on February 14 followed by the Indian Premier League. But are advertisers really preparing for it in a big way or is it going to be like just another day in the office for them? 

“In business terms, from a marketer’s perspective, just because there is IPL or World Cup, it does not mean he gets extra funds. It is dependent on the return on investments.

Why 'Cannes Lions' Should Be Hosted Four Times A Year?

FIRST ON WEB: Last week, Terry Savage, chief executive of Cannes Lions, is likely to have received an email with an appeal to organise the weeklong advertising festival four times a year—instead of just once.

And, according to the Indian nonprofit that sent the email, this video accompanied it.

The nonprofit—the Indian Confederation of NGOs (iCongo) — claims that in pursuits of awards, advertising creatives go into full swing two or three months preceding the International Festival of Creativity at Cannes. “It’s three months of pure, unadulterated, cockle-warming service to humankind,” as iCongo noted in its email.

How Instagram Can Make Money — Without Alienating Users

Photo-sharing site Instagram recently upset many of its users by suggesting in an amended terms of service agreement that the site might start using their photos in ads. Instagram later retracted the change, but the controversy raises questions about Instagram’s business model and how its owner, Facebook, might eventually make a profit from the free service. Experts says the answer is to build a mutually rewarding relationship with its users.

Within two years of its launch, Instagram has grown to 100 million users who have posted some five billion photos. But loyalties run fickle in the world of online services. A day after its revised terms-of-service prompted outrage among users, Instagram co-founder Kevin Systrom clarified in a blog post that his company didn’t intend to sell users’ photos to advertisers. The service was working to update the terms to make them clearer, he added. But some damage had been done: Within a week of the first announcement, Instagram’s number of daily active users fell from 16.4 million to 12.4 million, social media traffic tracking firm AppData told the New York Post. Many unhappy Instagram users threatened to take their photos to rivals like Yahoo-owned Flickr, which recently revamped its mobile app, along with Instaport.me and InstaBackup, according to a New York Times report.

Facebook, which bought Instagram last April for $1 billion, “needed some of Instagram’s functionality, and Instagram is worth much more to Facebook than it is alone,” Wharton operations and information management professor Eric Clemons told HNN soon after the purchase.

But the big question for Instagram is how to become profitable. Yildirim suggests several viable routes for Instagram to monetize its services, including low-risk options such as charging subscription fees, selling photo products and selling advertising. Higher-risk options include commercializing users’ photos and selling data to third parties. “Depending on which route they take, their major competitor will vary,” she adds.

“The first two options of monetization are relatively straightforward to implement and would result in low backlash from the consumers,” Yildirim notes. Most photo services allow for free subscriptions and limited storage, and begin charging for storage beyond a certain level. Flickr, which has such offerings, would become more of a competitor if Instagram pursues the subscription route. “The difficulty comes from convincing consumers to switch,” she says.

Instagram could also choose the option of selling advertising, including location-based or contextual ads relevant to the text or content of users’ photos, according to Yildirim. But unlike search engine-based advertising, advertising on Instagram would create some difficulties, she adds. “Technologies to process images [and offer ads based on the content in the photos] are not all that advanced at this point, but soon they will be.”

Another option for Instagram is to monetize its services in a way that would allow consumers to get “something in exchange” for their photos being appropriated for ads or other uses, says Yildirim. “There is an … opportunity for user-generated advertising for Instagram and YouTube. Creations — images and videos — of consumers can be picked up by firms for promotional purposes and distributed. It is cheaper to create promotional content this way, and ads can be more effective when the material comes from loyal consumers rather than an advertising agency.”

For such a strategy to have a chance of garnering the support of users, Yildirim notes, Instagram would need to give photographers some sort of recognition — monetary or otherwise — when their photos are picked up on the app and subsequently used in advertisements. “I think we will be moving in this direction,” she predicts, noting that on Twitter, “brands are collecting consumer photos and distributing them through tweets and re-tweets. There is no reason why this activity cannot be monetized.”

Impact of Celebrity Endorsement on a Brand

By Saurabh Katyal

The motif behind total branding may be decocted as an attempt to amalgamate diverse activities to win customer preference. Apropos to this context, the topic “Impact of celebrity endorsement on overall brand”, is a significant one. The crescendo of celebrities endorsing brands has been steadily increasing over the past years. Marketers overtly acknowledge the power of celebrities in influencing consumer-purchasing decisions. It is a ubiquitously accepted fact that celebrity endorsement can bestow special attributes upon a product that it may have lacked otherwise. But everything is not hunky-dory; celebrities are after all mere mortals made of flesh and blood like us. If a celebrity can aggrandize the merits of a brand, he or she can also exacerbate the image of a brand.

If I may take the liberty of rephrasing Aristotle’s quote on anger, “Any brand can get a celebrity. That is easy. But getting a celebrity consistent with the right brand, to the right degree, at the right time, for the right purpose and in the right way... that is not easy.”

Celebrity endorsements are impelled by virtue of the following motives:

• Instant Brand Awareness and Recall.
• Celebrity values define, and refresh the brand image.
• Celebrities add new dimensions to the brand image.
• Instant credibility or aspiration PR coverage.
• Lack of ideas.
• Convincing clients.

The scope of a celebrity on the incumbent brand:

Simply stating, a brand is a differentiated product and helps in identifying your product and making it stand out due to its name, design, style, symbol, color combination, or usually a mix of all these.

Before we can scrutinize the effects of celebrity endorsement on the overall brand, we have to ferret the implicit nuances that act as sources of strong brand images or values:

• Experience of use: This encapsulates familiarity and proven reliability.
• User associations: Brands acquire images from the type of people who are seen using them. Images of prestige or success are imbibed when brands are associated with glamorous personalities.
• Belief in efficiency: Ranking from consumer associations, newspaper editorials etc.
• Brand appearance: Design of brand offers clues to quality and affects preferences.
• Manufacturer’s name & reputation: A prominent brand name (Sony,Kellogg’s,Bajaj,Tata) transfers positive associations

The celebrity’s role is the most explicit and profound in incarnating user associations among the above-mentioned points. To comprehend this, let us analyze the multiplier effect formula for a successful brand:

S=P* D*AV --the multiplier effect
Where S is a successful brand,
P is an effective product.
D is Distinctive Identity
and AV is Added values.

The realm of the celebrity’s impact is confined to bestow a distinctive identity and provide AV to the brand; the celebrity does not have the power to improve or debilitate the efficiency and features of the core product. Thus, we are gradually approaching an evident proposition claiming,

“The health of a brand can definitely be improved up to some extent by celebrity endorsement. But one has to remember that endorsing a celebrity is a means to an end and not an end in itself.”

An appropriately used celebrity can prove to be a massively powerful tool that magnifies the effects of a campaign. But the aura of cautiousness should always be there. The fact to be emphasised is that celebrities alone do not guarantee success, as consumers nowadays understand advertising. They know what advertising is and how it works. People realize that celebrities are being paid a lot of money for  endorsements and this knowledge makes them cynical about celebrity endorsements.

Compatibility of the celebrity’s persona with the overall brand image
A celebrity is used to impart credibility and aspirational values to a brand, but the celebrity needs to match the product. A good brand campaign idea and an intrinsic link between the celebrity and the message are musts for a successful campaign. Celebrities are no doubt good at generating attention, recall and positive attitudes towards advertising provided that they are supporting a good idea and there is an explicit fit between them and the brand. On the other hand, they are rendered useless when it comes to the actual efficiency of the core product, creating positive attitudes to brands, purchase intentions and actual sales.

Certain parameters that postulate compatibility between the celebrity and brand image are:

• Celebrity’s fit with the brand image.
• Celebrity—Target audience match
• Celebrity associated values.
• Costs of acquiring the celebrity.
• Celebrity—Product match.
• Celebrity controversy risk.
• Celebrity popularity.
• Celebrity availability.
• Celebrity physical attractiveness.
• Celebrity credibility.
• Celebrity prior endorsements.
• Whether celebrity is a brand user.
• Celebrity profession.

Successful celebrity endorsements for a brand- An Indian perspective
The latter part of the '80s saw the burgeoning of a new trend in India– brands started being endorsed by celebrities. Hindi film and TV stars as well as sportspersons were roped in to endorse prominent brands. Advertisements, featuring stars like Tabassum (Prestige pressure cookers), Jalal Agha (Pan Parag), Kapil Dev (Palmolive Shaving Cream) and Sunil Gavaskar (Dinesh Suitings) became common. Probably, the first ad to cash in on star power in a strategic, long-term, mission statement kind of way was Lux soap. This brand has, perhaps as a result of this, been among the top three in the country for much of its lifetime.

In recent times, we had the Shah Rukh-Santro campaign with the objective of mitigating the impediment that an unknown Korean brand faced in the Indian market. The objective was to garner faster brand recognition, association and emotional unity with the target group. Star power in India can be gauged by the successful endorsement done by Sharukh for three honchos- Pepsi, Clinic All Clear and Santro. Similarly, when S Kumars used Hrithik Roshan, then the hottest advertising icon for their launch advertising for Tamarind, they reckoned they spent 40 - 50 per cent less on media due to the sheer impact of using Hrithik. Ad recall was as high as 70 per cent, and even the normally conservative trade got interested.

In the Indian context, it would not be presumptuous to state that celebrity endorsements can aggrandize the overall brand. We have numerous examples exemplifying this claim. A standard example here is Coke, which, till recently, didn't use stars at all internationally. In fact, India was a first for them. The result was a ubiquitously appealing Aamir cheekily stating Thanda matlab Coca Cola. The recall value for Nakshatra advertising is only due to the sensuous Aishwarya. The Parker pen brand, which by itself commands equity, used Amitabh Bachchan to revitalize the brand in India. According to Pooja Jain, Director, Luxor Writing Instruments Ltd (LWIL), post Bachchan, Parker's sales have increased by about 30 per cent.

India is one country, which has always idolized the stars of the celluloid world.
Therefore it makes tremendous sense for a brand to procure a celebrity for its endorsement. In India there is an exponential potential for a celebrity endorsement to be perceived as genuinely relevant, thereby motivating consumers to go in for the product. This would especially prove true if the endorser and the category are a natural lifestyle fit like sportspersons and footwear, Kapil-Sachin and Boost or film stars and beauty products.

Some Global Examples
Globally, firms have been juxtaposing their brands and themselves with celebrity endorsers. Some successful ongoing global endorsements are as follows:

• Celebrity endorsements have been the bedrock of Pepsi's advertising. Over the years, Pepsi has used and continues to use a number of celebrities for general market and targeted advertising, including Shaquille O'Neal, Mary J. Blige, Wyclef Jean, and Busta Rhymes, who did a targeted campaign for their Mountain Dew product.
• George Foreman for Meineke. He has also sold more than 10 million Lean Mean Fat-- Reducing Grilling Machines since signing with the manufacturing company.
• James Earl Jones for Verizon and CNN.
• Nike golf balls, since the company signed Tiger Woods in 1996, have seen a $50 million revenue growth. Nike's golf line grossed more than $250 million in annual sales. In 2000 he renegotiated a five-year contract estimated at $125 million.
• Other successful endorsements like Nike—Michael Jordan, Dunlop—John McEnroe, Adidas—Prince Naseem Hamed, and so on.
• Venus Williams, tennis player and Wimbledon champion has signed a five-year $40 million contract with sportswear manufacturer Reebok International Inc.

Advantages of a celebrity endorsing a Brand
Brands have been leveraging celebrity appeal for a long time. Across categories, whether in products or services, more and more brands are banking on the mass appeal of celebrities. As soon as a new face ascends the popularity charts, advertisers queue up to have it splashed all over. Witness the spectacular rise of Sania Mirza and Irfan Pathan in endorsements in a matter of a few months. The accruement of celebrity endorsements can be justified by the following advantages that are bestowed on the overall brand:

• Establishment of Credibility: Approval of a brand by a star fosters a sense of trust for that brand among the target audience- this is especially true in case of new products. We had the Shah Rukh-Santro campaign. At launch, Shah Rukh Khan endorsed Santro and this ensured that brand awareness was created in a market, which did not even know the brand.
• Ensured Attention: Celebrities ensure attention of the target group by breaking the clutter of advertisements and making the ad and the brand more noticeable.
• PR coverage : is another reason for using celebrities. Managers perceive celebrities as topical, which create high PR coverage. A good example of integrated celebrity campaigns is one of the World’s leading pop groups, the Spice Girls, who have not only appeared in advertisements for Pepsi, but also in product launching and PR events. Indeed, celebrity-company marriages are covered by most media from television to newspapers (e.g. The Spice Girls and Pepsi)
• Higher degree of recall: People tend to commensurate the personalities of the celebrity with the brand thereby increasing the recall value. Golf champion Tiger Woods has endorsed American Express, Rolex, and Nike. Actress Catherine Zeta-Jones is used by T-Mobile and Elizabeth Arden. 007 Pierce Brosnan promotes Omega, BMW, and Noreico.
• Associative Benefit: A celebrity’s preference for a brand gives out a persuasive message - because the celebrity is benefiting from the brand, the consumer will also benefit.
• Mitigating a tarnished image: Cadbury India wanted to restore the consumer's confidence in its chocolate brands following the high-pitch worms controversy; so the company appointed Amitabh Bachchan for the job. Last year, when the even more controversial pesticide issue shook up Coca-Cola and PepsiCo and resulted in much negative press, both soft drink majors put out high-profile damage control ad films featuring their best and most expensive celebrities. While Aamir Khan led the Coke fightback as an ingenious and fastidious Bengali who finally gets convinced of the product's `purity,' PepsiCo brought Shah Rukh Khan and Sachin Tendulkar together once again in a television commercial which drew references to the `safety' of the product indirectly.
• Psychographic Connect: Celebrities are loved and adored by their fans and advertisers use stars to capitalise on these feelings to sway the fans towards their brand.
• Demographic Connect: Different stars appeal differently to various demographic segments (age, gender, class, geography etc.).
• Mass Appeal: Some stars have a universal appeal and therefore prove to be a good bet to generate interest among the masses.
• Rejuvenating a stagnant brand: With the objective of infusing fresh life into the stagnant chyawanprash category and staving off competition from various brands, Dabur India roped in Bachchan for an estimated Rs 8 crore.
• Celebrity endorsement can sometimes compensate for lack of innovative ideas.

Disadvantages of a celebrity endorsing a brand:
The celebrity approach has a few serious risks:

1. The reputation of the celebrity may derogate after he/she has endorsed the product: Pepsi Cola's suffered with three tarnished celebrities - Mike Tyson, Madonna, and Michael Jackson. Since the behaviour of the celebrities reflects on the brand, celebrity endorsers may at times become liabilities to the brands they endorse.
2. The vampire effect: This terminology pertains to the issue of a celebrity overshadowing the brand. If there is no congruency between the celebrity and the brand, then the audience will remember the celebrity and not the brand. Examples are the campaigns of Dawn French—Cable Association and Leonard Rossiter—Cinzano. Both of these campaigns were aborted due to celebrities getting in the way of effective communication. Another example could be the Castrol commercial featuring Rahul Dravid.
3. Inconsistency in the professional popularity of the celebrity: The celebrity may lose his or her popularity due to some lapse in professional performances. For example, when Tendulkar went through a prolonged lean patch recently, the inevitable question that cropped up in corporate circles - is he actually worth it? The 2003 Cricket World Cup also threw up the Shane Warne incident, which caught Pepsi off guard. With the Australian cricketer testing positive for consuming banned substances and his subsequent withdrawal from the event, bang in the middle of the event, PepsiCo - the presenting sponsor of the World Cup 2003 - found itself on an uneasy wicket
4. Multi brand endorsements by the same celebrity would lead to overexposure: The novelty of a celebrity endorsement gets diluted if he does too many advertisements. This may be termed as commoditisation of celebrities, who are willing to endorse anything for big bucks. Example, MRF was among the early sponsors of Tendulkar with its logo emblazoned on his bat. But now Tendulkar endorses a myriad brands and the novelty of the Tendulkar-MRF campaign has scaled down.
5. Celebrities endorsing one brand and using another (competitor): Sainsbury’s encountered a problem with Catherina Zeta Jones, whom the company used for its recipe advertisements, when she was caught shopping in Tesco. A similar case happened with Britney Spears who endorsed one cola brand and was repeatedly caught drinking another brand of cola on tape.
6. Mismatch between the celebrity and the image of the brand: Celebrities manifest a certain persona for the audience. It is of paramount importance that there is an egalitarian congruency between the persona of the celebrity and the image of the brand. Each celebrity portrays a broad range of meanings, involving a specific personality and lifestyle. Madonna, for example, is perceived as a tough, intense and modern women associated with the lower middle class. The personality of Pierce Brosnan is best characterized as the perfect gentlemen, whereas Jennifer Aniston has the image of the ‘good girl from next door’.

CONCLUSION
Despite the obvious economic advantage of using relatively unknown personalities as endorsers in advertising campaigns, the choice of celebrities to fulfill that role has become common practice for brands competing in today's cluttered media environment. There are several reasons for such extensive use of celebrities. Because of their high profile, celebrities may help advertisements stand out from the surrounding clutter, thus improving their communicative ability. Celebrities may also generate extensive PR leverage for brands. For example, when Revlon launched the "Won't kiss off test" for its Colorstay lipsticks in 1994 with Cindy Crawford kissing reporters, the campaign featured on almost every major news channel and equally widely in the press. A brief assessment of the current market situation indicates, that celebrity endorsement advertising strategies can, under the right circumstances, indeed justify the high costs associated with this form of advertising.

But it would be presumptuous to consider celebrity endorsement as a panacea for all barricades. Celebrity endorsement if used effectively, makes the brand stand out, galvanizes brand recall and facilitates instant awareness. To achieve this, the marketer needs to be really disciplined in choice of a celebrity. Hence the right use of celebrity can escalate the Unique Selling Proposition of a brand to new heights; but a cursory orientation of a celebrity with a brand may prove to be claustrophobic for the brand. A celebrity is a means to an end, and not an end in himself/herself.   (Newsindia Syndication)

The Shameful, Politically Incorrect Side Of Indian Ad Industry

You know what gets us going? What is the world weary Indian woman’s espresso, Deepak Chopra and pranayam rolled into one? It’s a packet of detergent. The killer one with jasmine fragrance or the other one that leaves the hubby gawking at his underwear like he’s spotted Lady Gaga in a tandoori chicken dress.

You can be in denial but you can’t hide from the great Indian advertising business. They know all your deep dark secrets. How you fancy not a man, but any man who wears deodorant. How, deep inside your hearts, you’re a Fair and Lovely ninja. How it’s not sex, but the sight of a bowl of grapes, chocolates or whatever condom makers fancy, that’s enough to make women sit alone at home and moan like its their favourite pastime. How the best thing that happened to you after Pink Floyd is a gaggle of girls cooing ‘Hi handsome, hi handsome, hi handsome’ (each with a baffling cadence resembling a shriek).

Strange, but true.

The world is up in arms against a JWT poster for Ford that went viral – one that shows  Silvio Berlusconi flashing a victory sign and a bunch of skimpily clad girls bound and gagged in the back of a car – and has accused the Indian advertising firms of being obnoxiously sexist.

The case, as an article on The New York Times points out, turns the spotlight on the conflicts that populate the Indian advertising industry today. It points a finger at enthusiastic young ad professionals going to great, shameful lengths to win awards. (The JWT ad was uploaded on a website and was an entry to some award). It explains how Indian ad professionals these days have little sense of political correctness.

The furor is not all misplaced maybe. NYT points out, how the ad, in the backdrop of the recent incidents of abuse against women in India, comes across as one that is of bad taste. It is sexist, it stereotypes the woman and is outright insulting.

What, however, is unfortunate is that it takes the image of a bunch of scantily clad women, bound and gagged, to wake up to the fact that Indian advertising’s  gender view is more than just a little skewed.

We obviously don’t froth at our mouths when in commercials after commercials, women (some of them, celebrities) are seen lighting up at the sight of XYZ washing powder the way Nigella does at the sight of a gorgeous piece of steak.

Now there is little that is wrong with washing clothes. However, to suggest that a woman would run to blow dry her hair and dance around lines of just-washed clothes, at the mere sight of a lemon perfumed washing powder and with no help from any narcotics, needs incredible amounts of imagination. Of a healthy kind I’m sure. Because look at how many people agree to it – first, all the bright minds in the agency who make the ad, then the visibly pleased manufacturers of the said powder, then the TV channel people who run the ads every 5 minutes and those thousands of women, and men, who sit through them patiently. Without complaints. Remember this gem of an advertisement that featured actors Salman Khan and Prachi Desai?

Just a month or so back, Indian women’s activists wrote a strong letter protesting the Harvard College Women’s Center’s announcement that they’ll suggest ways to tackle gender violence in India. No, they couldn’t lie down and take the symbolic assault of the West on the Indian’s woman’s sense of self and independence. Obviously, ads like these, which suggest Indian women are a bunch of pretty nutcases who can be manipulated with a bar of soap, aren’t that offensive. Or the world has stopped paying attention to TV.

According to NYT, the JWT case saw a big name in advertising step down, a team of ten people being shown the door. On the other hand, we all yawned and looked away when this enlightening ad of Merino Laminates surfaced on TV.

Angry young woman enters husband’s house seeking a divorce. And since husband knows the loony he was married to pretty well, he has done up his house with Merino Laminates. Woman gawks, swoons, drools over the wardrobe, caresses the kitchen cabinet, blushes at the sight of newly laminated drawers and changes her mind about the divorce.

Now there isn’t anything creepy about salivating over a kitchen table right? Obviously not. There isn’t anything vaguely disturbing about suggesting that women would walk out of a marriage over bad looking kitchens? Obviously not. For, there wasn’t as much as a ‘yuck’ over the said ad on even Twitter, forget firing people for making it.

Let’s look at the target audience here. People to have access to TVs, people who will spend on deodorants, will buy two hundred rupees a kilo washing powders, laminates to do up their homes etc. People, we can expect, who don’t struggle with money all that much, who have had decent access to education. Don’t know about the men, but women who don’t spend their evenings washing clothes of the joint family or sniffing out men wearing the right deo.

But who cares?

These are small casualties of watching the test match or the dance reality show. Not noxious enough to take up cudgels against. Only when, carried away by the tradition of vile stereotyping, someone does what the JWT guys did and the world takes notice, that we solemnly join the Indian-ads- suck chorus. Till the IPL match starts that is.