Airtel

Airtel for the past few days has been in a crises. To deal with the consumers Airtel must first understand the amount of pain and trouble it is causing to their consumers.

For the past four days no Airtel customer in Mumbai has been able to use their phone properly. No business calls, no casual calls, no surfing the internet. 

Understandably such a disaster of a cell tower burning could have occurred to anyone, but it happened to Airtel.
So far Airtel has dealt with the situation the best it can but it needs to work better and faster to fix the problem.
In the meantime all cell services should be checking the safety of their own towers.

The Dark Fantasy

In 2005, Sunfeast launched their response to the high-end cream biscuit, Pure Magic. The biscuit is called Dark Fantasy and after a year, it can be said that Dark Fantasy is better marketed. There are a number of reasons for this, such as:

- Dark Fantasy distribution system is better. It delivers it product every week on Monday and its outreach is better that Pure Magic.

- Dark Fantasy’s packing is much more attractive that Pure Magic. While Pure Magic, only adorns a simple and colourful plastic packing, Dark Fantasy reveals a glossy packaging.

- Dark Fantasy also is relatively bigger that Pure Magic. The biscuit itself is bigger and the packet contains more biscuits that Pure Magic.

- The advertising of Dark Fantasy was based on the seven sins and the ad positioned Dark Fantasy as an indulgent biscuit. Compared to Dark Fantasy, Pure Magic has a very weak advertising base.

As far as can be seen, Pure Magic has failed to react to the challenge of Dark Fantasy and it will not be long before it is overtaken.

Two Decades of Frooti

Twenty-five years have passed since Parle Agro introduced the drink Frooti in 1985 and entered the fruit beverage market. It natural choice of flavor for Fruit was the most loved fruit in India, mango. India has a large craving for the fruit mango and for Parle Agro it was without a doubt their first flavor. Parle Agro partnered with DaCunha Communications to create Frooti. The launching budget of Frooti was twenty lakh and more than half of it was spent on television advertising.

“Mango Frooti… fresh n juicy” was the tag line that immediately put Frooti in the market, but more importantly is the packing of the drink. Parle Agro with their partners decided to make their packing different. While most cold drinks were packaged and sold in glass bottles, Frooti was packed and sold in tetra packs. The biggest advantage tetra packs had over glass bottles was its mobility. Frooti could be carried around much easier than glass bottles. It was fortunate for Parle Agro that their partners had previously worked for Amul who were already using tetra packs for their milk products.

The first advertising of Frooti focused on the packing. The audience was amazed with a drink that one could punch a straw in and walk around with it. People came to cities to take away cartons of the drink.

As Frooti advertising developed a lot of fun and cool ads were created. Advertisements used pretty girls in mini-skirts, hula-hoops, use of CG and people diving into a pool of Frooti. Local Publicity stunts as such as Frooti hanging from trees which people could pluck were done. In 2010, Frooti revamped themselves and created a new advertising campaign called the ‘Mango Surprise’. Giant mango were dropped from trees and rolled down roads on unsuspecting pedestrians. These moments were captured by hidden cameras and edited to create TVCs.

After twenty five years Frooti still holds a leading position in the mango fruit market. Frooti is continuously embarking on new campaigns to adapt to the changing consumer, yet their core brand value of being a cool and fun drink has not been lost.

Two Part Ad

The is a rise of a new advertising trend in the markets. It has so far occurred to two advertising campaigns. One of Nescafe and the other of Amithab Bachchan’s new upcoming movie, Buddhua. What I am referring to is the advertisement being played in parts. On a whole this style has been a success as it generates an interesting and fun element in the advertisement.

This advertisement is based on having two advertisements. The first one may or not end with a too be continued line. The Nescafe ad leaves the audience in suspense of whether the lead male gets the actress Deepika Padkone. And we have a follow up of the ad where Karan Johar appears and the lead male takes him on over a cup of Nescafe. Both interesting ads.

Amithab Bachchan is an appearance of a shadow figure of him with the tag line The Angry Man is back. This creates a thrill at the same time a suspense towards the audience. The term Angry Man brings back memories for the audience of their favourite classical Bollywood movies. This ad follow the release of trailer of Amithab Bachachan's new movie Bbuddah-Hoga Terra Baap.

The future of this style of advertisement is only set to increase as it is popular with the public.

Corruption at Corporate Level

In India we curse at the corruption in our government. However there is a corruption that is unseen and slithers around like a snake and that is of corruption at the cooperate level. It is not uncommon in India to have a company to pay the government or give ‘incentives’ to the government.

The biggest and the best example is the Bhopal gas tragedy, where many people died, injured and genetics was restructured in that area. Union Carbide the company which was largely responsible had managed to get a safety certificate, and the results did not play up to that certificate. The CEO of Enron who should have been detained in India managed to get out with some questionable help from the Rajiv Gandhi government.

Also not spoken, but commonly known is of Reliance industries success in the early years and its dealings with the government.

However last year and this year it is all changing. The 2G scam and the Neera Radia’s case have been revolutionary in this aspect.

The 2G scam case has seen a number of industrial haunches in the cross-sights of the CBI for giving bribes to the former Telecom Minister and one can only hope that the truth will emerge.

The Nira Radia’s case has revealed a media-political and corporate nexus.

If the Company’s cannot see the trend, then let me say it.

The people are demanding more corporate social responsibility. They don’t want the company’s to be hand in glove with a corrupt government and officials.

Tata has become an image in this case and company’s such as Reliance and such others need to change their image.

The fight against corruption is only getting stronger as we recently seen Ana Anzare’s hunger strike against corruption.

Fiat Logo

Fiat has been a successful car in India. For the past few years Fiat has been trying enter the luxury sector by producing a variety of sedans.

However there is one thing that I feel Fiat needs to change if it is to make a major headway. It needs to change is logo. Fiat’s current and previous logo is to straight forward. It is just the letters FIAT.

A logo in today’s world is supposed to be cool and classy. The logo may work with the older generation, but it will not work with the newer generation.

The newer generation needs something that will enable them to recall. If Fiat is going to just write their name and call it their logo, then a lot of opportunities are lost.

A Logo is important in branding of a product. And Fiat just typing the letter FIAT seems like they took an easy way out.

Whatever it is, if they want to become a big competitor in today’s market one of the things they need to do is change their logo.

A logo plays a big role in Top of Mind Recall. A good logo is easy to remember and a few flash of a logo goes well in reminding the consumers of the brand.

A logo can tell the history of the company. BMW’s logo is of a propeller, which signifies its airplane engines background.

However I understand this is not an easy demand. To change ones logo is to change’s one image. But for Fiat to make a major headway in the market it needs a better logo. A logo that is graphic and visual which would generate high recall. Fiat does not have to change its image if it changes its logo. The logo can come from its history. The logo can be based on Fiat’s image.

LANDLINE SHOULD NOT DIE

With the number of mobile numbers increasing, it is safe to say that mobiles have penetrated through India. However with this increase there has been a decrease. The number of landlines has decreased. This spells bad business for MTNL and BSNL. However both these organization have moved from landlines connection to include mobile connection and internet connection.

While the initiative for mobile connections has not turned out very successful, the internet initiative turned out differently. MTNL as quoted by my friend is “internet ka baap”. MTNL probably has the fastest and most reliable internet connection in India. However for consumer to have an MTNL internet connection will require him/her to have a landline connection.

Many consumers in this present over connected age feel that the mobile connection is suffice compared to landline connection; they do not see the need for a landline connection.

However MTNL and BSNL are missing out on a major marketing strategy that is that in a natural disaster or crisis mobile connections are not so reliable either because their towers get knocked out or they get overloaded. Landlines have time and time again proven their strength against natural disasters or a crisis. If they are reminded of or made aware of that security of connectivity that landlines gives during natural disasters or crisis when the mobile connection is down. Proposing a security to a classical unsecure setting that could happen in the future will definitely get people’s attention.