Docomo – Keeping it simple and smart

I have always adored Docomo’s communication, barring a few aberrations like its mobile portability ads. Their latest effort, starring Ranbir Kapoor, is commendable if not exactly brilliant.

I respect those ads that highlight the core product benefits, even if they do not come across as striking. Docomo’s ads fall in that category. They might not win awards, but they will result in sales, which goes one step ahead of creating a brand.

More importantly, they haven’t wasted a celebrity, neither have they put too much focus on him. At the end of the commercial, you remember the messages in the ad, not just Ranbir.

Quite frankly, some of the ads are pretty ordinary like ‘the family that eats together, stays together’. But some of the commercials are quite witty, ‘poora mat bolo, poora mat sunaao’, ‘why the frog in the well does not come outside? Because, it costs roaming’. Smart!

Like every time, Docomo has tried to do something different. And kept it simple, not necessarily stupid.

Cadbury ads – where has the sweetness gone?

The more I watch the new Cadbury Dairy Milk commercials, the more I lament about the deterioration in the communication. First there was the likeable, ‘Kuchch meetha ho jaaye’ campaign starring Amitabh Bachchan. Then came the parody, ‘Meetha hain khaana aaj pehli tareekh hain’, which was still palatable, I thought. Just when things were improving marginally with the ‘Shubh Aarambh’ campaign, you see their latest effort, ‘Meethe mein kuchch meetha ho jaaye’ (whatever it means!)

I see the point in Cadbury trying to do a Coca-Cola – ‘thanda matlab Coca-Cola’ and ‘meetha matlab Cadbury’, if that is the intention. Still appreciable! But the execution is puerile, to say the least. The interaction between the young husband and wife comes across as an ad for a contraceptive, what with both of them discussing the dinner menu as if they didn’t use protection last night. Also, the first ad where the grandmom apologises to her grand-daughter is a let-down.

The new Cadbury Silk campaign, too, is a big disappointment. The sight of grown-ups licking chocolate and sucking wrappers isn’t exactly amusing.

Was it a conscious effort to do away with the wit, humour or the vivacity of the erstwhile Cadbury campaigns?

Try recollecting the old ad where the hottie dodges the security and dances with gay abandon after her boyfriend hits a six. And you will probably understand why the new ads are so forgettable. The sheer innocence and the simple storyline worked wonders. There was no effort to hard-sell the chocolate unlike in their latest campaign as if, ‘Oh, you know what! The Indian family likes to eat desserts after dinner. So why not position the chocolate in that space?’ If that was what the brief to the agency was!

Like Ranbir Kapoor says in the latest Docomo ads, ‘Keep it simple, silly’!

Dubbed South Indian movies on TV? We mind it!

For the past few months, satellite channels are agog with these movies. Try switching channels, and you will be lucky to find a Hindi film running on a Hindi GEC. I wonder what the TRPs for such movies would be! Who would bother to watch these movies with hilarious titles; including the South Indian audiences settled elsewhere in India? Sample these names:

Indra – The Tiger, Mera Boss Bajrangbali, Meri Jung – One Man Army, Don No. 1, Loha – The Iron Man!

I have nothing against these movies. They may be really entertaining, in an intentional way. But what’s the point in telecasting them on prime time on a Hindi GEC? Die-hard South Indian movie fans will prefer watching the films in their original language any day.

At the end of a hard day at work, I will prefer watching Amol Palekar’s Golmaal for the nth time than a pudgy, pot-bellied hero mouthing dialogues in terrible lip sync.

Like the Oscar-wallahs don’t understand song and dance routines in Bollywood movies, we too don’t understand the sensibilities of a movie culture where the hero can create a cyclone by the sheer force of his fart. To each his own! All’s fine until it’s showed to the relevant target audience.

So, could the Star TVs and Sonys of the world please have mercy on us, and run some quality movies, at least on prime time? I don’t pay you for the content I can easily watch on Sun TV.