May 09, 2003 10:30 PM
5708 Views
(Updated May 09, 2003 10:30 PM)
In today’s age of the digital divide and increasing consumer propensity to spend, many companies have realised the tremendous potential that the typical middle class provides. Having the second largest growing economy in the world (in terms of the untapped customer base as a percentage of the total base), the Indian consumer is very rightly the king and is being wooed by hundreds of brands all vying for the top slot in terms of market share in their respective segments.
The Ad or something like it
Mountain Dew was launched in India and the TV Ad, with “progressive” and “Youthful” ideas, was out during the recently concluded cricket world cup. The Ad (if it can be called one) goes something like this. A young punk (attired in the funniest of clothes and with a haircut and other accessories to match), is chasing a cheetah on a (mountain) bike.
Just when I thought that the cheetah was running away from him because it was terrified of his appearance, our “Martian” hits the brakes hard, lunges for the cheetah and overpowers it. At this point I thought that drinking MD makes one a superman with the dressing style of Tarzan, Jungle smartness of Mowgli and the survival instincts of The Beastmaster. Our man puts his arm deep into the belly of the cheetah, extracts a can of MD riddled with holes and admonishes the cheetah by saying “Bad Cheetah” to which the poor beast purrs like a feline and licks its mouth in a content manner as if saying “Better luck next time, you punk”.
The superman’s friends are watching the scene from atop a plateau (could be Mahabaleshwar for all you know) and one of them illuminates the others by saying “Cheetah Bhi Peeta Hai” (Cheetah also drinks). To provide more entertainment to the public, the superman goes on to pour down the contents of the now derelict can (there’s nothing left in it anyway).
What are they trying to convey?
A good Ad is one which sells the own concept or idea underlying the product. The time available to convince the customer on TV is very limited (usually not more than a maximum of 60 seconds) and within this time frame, the Ad ought to provide information about the product and convince the consumers to try it out.
Unfortunately, this Ad falls flat on its face. If the intention was to convey that the soft drink is targeted at the youth who are brave, daring, courageous (and other synonymous adjectives), they have messed it up royally. If the intention was to convey that the consumer becomes like the guys in the ad after drinking MD, they have only ensured that no sane person ever touches a bottle/can of MD again.
Thus Spake TiC
There is nothing in the Ad that highlights its salient features, unless of course one feels that the only perceptible benefit is that it makes people crazy enough to go to forests and chase wild beasts, in which case, they would then be better off exhibiting this Ad on special screens in forestlands.
Any third grade ad agency worth its name can put crazy ideas on the paper board, fine tune them into an Ad and show the same on TV. To do this, one doesn’t need to hire a top-notch Ad agency. Any aspiring mass communication graduate can do a decent job. The moot point is whether these kind of Ads effectively sell the product? Will they be able to communicate the right impression about the product to prospective consumers? More importantly, will they bring about a change in the mindset of the consumers and convince them to switch their preferences?
The MD Ad doesn’t meet any of the above-mentioned criteria that are essential to make a success of a new product. Which youngster in his sane mind will wear silly outfits and tempt an unsuspecting cheetah with a can of MD as the bait so that he can chase it to retrieve his precious ambrosia? There is no such thing as a product positioning much less the willingness to sell the concept of MD.
Such poorly planned and pathetically shot Ads are not fit to be shown on TV screens. They are best condemned to the dustbins or better still, to the tummies of wild beasts.
