The product is an aerated beverage. What benefits does that offer to its consumer?
# It quenches thirst with good taste
# It is refreshing/cooling
Any other benefits? Think hard and you will come up with none.
For how long does an aerated beverage promote itself on two (often debated) benefits.
When were aerated beverages launched in India? Maybe five decades back.
How many brands exist today? Close to fifteen?
So how does one expect aerated drinks, a generic product that is fifty years old, with around 15 competitors to continue talking of only two benefits? What about differentiation, setting your product apart from the clutter and noise of the number of brands jostling for mind space and shelf space?
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Does the role of an advertisement begin and end with product benefits only? Benefits that the world and its grandmother are well aware of like the back of their hand. Spending good money on repeating the same old messages that get you nowhere? But advertise we must, since generate sales we must.
Its been time long enough now for soft drinks to go beyond benefits in their ads. Give the brand some associations, youth, fun, thrill, being the favourite of filmstars, cricketers. Such brand associations for aerated beverages began well over two decades ago, with Sunil Gavaskar/ Kapil Dev promoting Thums Up.
And now in this crowd of brand associations, and brand feelings, when one brand stands up to differentiate itself and say, no association, no feelings, just plain thirst quenching? It is again a brand making its stand felt and effectively at that. This is Sprite
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Beginning from its ads featuring Lisa Ray to string of other ads spoofing all competitors’ ads, Sprite has always been promoted as the no-nonsense, no-frill attached, no glitz, no glamour, no hardsell aerated beverage. Just plain thirst quenching.
Sprite hasn't always spoofed competitors. An ad also featured two guys and a dog that had no reference to any competitor yet carried the same message.
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What happens when competition in the form of a brand that promotes itself with the help of ads showing hip, zanily dressed, ultra hep cool dudes who have been bungee jumping, done every adventure sport to death and are now bored, find a new found excitement in a soft drink called Mountain Dew. (Mind you even Mountain Dew does not promote any product benefit, just associations). They have the drink and feel a sudden rush, are able to outrace cheetahs, extract cans from their tummies, reprimand them and generally keep yelling, “Do the Dew”. Who cannot call this ad highly pretentious and far-fetched.
Isn’t this fodder enough for Sprite to attack, spoof and make fun of. And show in its ad the same kind of guys landing out of nowhere at a shop yelling, “I Wanna Do”. With a no-nonsense staid Sprite drinker explaining to the puzzled shopkeeper, that they want to do something. And the shopkeeper points out to the bushes behind which are a bunch of urinating guys outside saying “Don’t do here, do there.”
Yes Sprite spoofs Mountain Dew and rips its ad apart, nothing hidden about it. But there is no mention of the competitors name, no mention of even its ad lines.
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Is it ethical?
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Are mimicry artistes unethical? Don’t they really rip apart their subjects? Should Johnny Lever, Sudesh Bhosale, and Shekhar Suman now be jailed? Or haven’t they a huge fan following that enjoys them poking fun at other stars?
Declaring the use (comparison or spoofing) of a competitors’ ad to promote a product as unethical, is an old school of thought.
All this sounds best when printed with UV coating for glossy company annual reports, or when expensively framed and hung in glitzy office lobbies as mission statements, but definitely not in the dog eat dog real world of marketing. Unpalatable, unacceptable, yet real.
For God’s sake these are just soft drinks. Sit back and enjoy the fun as they slander each other.
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I love this ad hands down because:-
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The ad is true to its brand’s positioning
And this is what makes it extremely effective.
The ad cashes on a competitor ad
Call it a leech if you may, but it succeeds. Apply here the old ‘smart work’ vs. ‘hard work’ funda. Why do additional ground work when someone has already done it for you? Why re-invent the wheel?
The ad not only cashes on the competitor but also belittles it
And is getting away with it too. Now is that cocky or is that cocky. The fact that this ad has generated so much discussion shows that it is successful. Does anyone even know that Mountain Dew had a counter ad to this one? And if this campaign of Sprite makes a dent in Mountain Dew sales, its all the more effective.
The ad is creative
Yes it is. It is matter of no less creativity to pick out points that jar in something else and spoof it out. And eliciting reaction of helpless laugher, or a grossed out feeling of disgust. Whatever the reaction it’s the sheer creativity that’s generating them.
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The consumers’ reaction
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Who is the consumer? The consumer is the teen out there in his college canteen. Marketers select a target audience out of an entire population and devise their strategies around them only. Ask the majority of the college canteen crowd and they love this ad. Like they even loved the Mountain Dew ad.
They have a choice, do they ‘wannabe’ energetic, ultra-cool dudes and drink Mountain Dew, or do they ‘wannabe’ the sturdy, laidback silent dudes who drink Sprite.
Those who do not belong to the target group yet use the product, are the ones who aspire to be like the target group. They are all welcome for the additional sales they bring.
And those who do not belong to the target and don’t use the product can go fly kites for all the ad-makers care, they weren’t targeted anyway.
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It all sounds very nice to say that such cola ads are wrong, must not be done, and they must not make fun of their competitors, respect them (respect colas?) and blah blah. So lets just go ahead and rename our world UTOPIA.
Sprite will definitely get a burst of increased sales during the period this ad is aired and for a definite period after its stops too. After that? There will be some other ad to spoof, what’s the worry?
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