May 02, 2003 10:20 PM
4730 Views
(Updated May 02, 2003 11:54 PM)
The advertisements section have seen a plethora of reviews since it was launched and it is indeed heartening to see that the consumer is noticing every small detail of the ads and shredding it into pieces. The Reliance ads have however received a lot of unfair and undue criticism and as far as I see it, they have been a great success. Why? Let me tell you why I think so?
First, let’s go through the three ads.
1) Sehwag Ki Maa - Sehwag is batting, Last ball, six runs to win, a spectator gets a call on his reliance cell phone and it is Sehwag’s mother and her picture is on the mobile. The kid grabs the phone and hurls it to Sehwag, Sehwag is inspired, wins the match.
2) Papa, aap Kidhar hain - A daughter is getting married, the dad gifts her a Reliance Cell phone, daughter leaves the home crying and then leaves in a car and then calls back using the cell phone saying she misses him.
3) Aur Ek Kahani - Dad is in a meeting in Delhi, Son calls up using Reliance cell phone to dad. Son asks him when he coming back and he not able to sleep. So dad tells him a story and later the son asks for another story.
Many of them on this site called these ads as very corny and stupid. Well I think they were a bit stupid too. But the main point here to notice is that it connected with the targeted audience.. Reliance’s audience was not us. By us I mean, the well educated, fashionable and the most importantly modern urbanite. Their main target was the rural customer and the small town people and of course the less educated and modern urbanite. I think the ad is pretty good for the following reasons :-
1) It touched a chord with the Indian mind which is deeply entrenched with the idea that a relationship is very sacred. So they use the Father-Son relation and the Mother-Son relation to the hilt. How can you forget the quintessential Indian Wedding? The father letting her daughter go to her in-laws’ house. That had to strike a chord with the Indians.
2) Then you have the simplicity of the ad for the “not too deeply thinking” rural consumer. He was shown a phone in which you could apparently even see photos of who was calling. He was impressed. That’s about it. No offense to the rural population, but would the brilliant Hutch ads have the same effect as Reliance on them?
3) They did not use a celebrity.(Except for Sehwag, though I don’t think that he affected the campaign that much). With Reliance’s might, it could have roped in the whole of the Indian Cricket team and the whole of bollywood. But luckily, that did not happen. I always believe that the Star should never be bigger than the product. Having a Mega Star endorsing the product would have given reliance an elitist status, which it definitely does not intend to achieve. Take the case of Maruti Versa. Amitabh was the brand ambassador. Perfect case of star being larger than product. The product and the ad were both failures.
All in all, a pretty well thought out effort and deserves atleast a four out of five
