Aamir Khan is Jhingalala for Tata Sky

Khan has been in the news these days, heavily promoting his latest production, Jaane Tu… Ya Jaane Na, which is also his nephew, Imran Khan’s debut film. Recently, he has started endorsing Samsung and Parle Monaco. He has been the Titan brand ambassador for a while now.

 

Tata Sky is a joint venture between the Tata Group, STAR TV. In this venture TATA owns 80% and STAR TV owns a 20% stake. Tata Sky was incorporated in 2004 but was launched only in 2006. The company uses the Sky brand owned by British Sky Broadcasting.

Tata Sky, has roped in Aamir Khan as its brand ambassador. Bollywood star Aamir Khan has entered into a long-term contract with Tata Sky. Aamir Khan will be used extensively for communicating the benefits of Tata Sky to the Indian consumer. It is definitely a strategic move as the rival dish TV has signed Shah Rukh Khan. Tata Sky would use Khan to take the brand forward. He is not the first brand ambassador for the 21-month old DTH service provider. Hrithik Roshan was used during the Cricket World Cup in 2007 for select campaigns and other film stars like Kiron Kher and Paresh Rawal were also used for some campaigns which basically testimonial ads.

 

Khan will feature in all the Tata Sky ads in print, TV, outdoor and radio with the popular Tata Sky tag line Isko laga dala, to life jhingalala.

 

Rediffusion DY&R is the company’s creative agency.

Hrithik Roshan is Magic for M2-Magic Moments

M2-Magic Moments Vodka, a Radico Khaitan Ltd. brand, has recently launched its seven flavors for Indian market. The flavors are raspberry, ginger, lime, lemon grass, green apple, chocolate and orange.

 

The new brand is targeted at youth. The M2-Magic Moments Vodka has unique packaging which draw consumer attention. The bottles have graphics directly printed on to them, and Radico Khaitan has invested in the latest packaging decoration technology currently being used in Europe.

 

M2-Magic Moments  Vodka promises everything that a person’s life should have – enjoyment, fun, zest and zing. It’s a product which stands for excitement in life.

 

Bollywood actor Hrithik Roshan has been signed on as the brand ambassador for M2 – Magic Moments vodka. The energy and stylish modern appeal of Hrithik fits well with the international, young, energetic Magic Moments vodka brand and the experience that it promises its consumers.

 

Shah Rukh Khan The King of Endorsements

In 1993, Shah Rukh Khan first appeared in three ads for tea brand Brahmaputra. The ads heralded the arrival of Shah Rukh Khan as a brand endorser of some stature. The very next year, he ended up endorsing three more brands – Hero Puch, Cinthol and Mayur Suitings. The series of his hits not only established him as a super star of film industry but also positioned him as a bankable endorser.

In 1996 he was signed by cola giant Pepsi, which can be seen as the turning point of his endorsement career. Shah Rukh Khan since then, has endorsed Bagpiper, Hyundai Santro and i10, Top Ramen noodles, Jeanne Arthes, Clinic All Clear shampoo, Emami-Sona Chandi Chyawanprash, Lux, Omega, Airtel, Nokia, sunfeast, Compaq, Home Trade, Videocon to name a few.
The superstar Shah Rukh Khan has 34 brand endorsement deals for year 2008 which is down from 37 endorsement brand in year 2007. I believe that other celebrity like Hrithik Roshan, Salman Khan, Aamir Khan and Akshay kumar have not shown great interest in the endorsement market. In the given scenario it is important to understand what makes him the most popular celebrity brand endorser around?

Shah Rukh Khan has been around for a long time, and has become a bankable name. He is the only one who has proved to be consistent for last fifteen years (since the release of his first movie in 1992). In recent past we have seen that the actors like Hrithik Roshan, Salman Khan, Aamir Khan and Akshay kumar are also consistent and bankable name of the Indian film industry but they are not the corporate world darling. In my views corporate world not only look for these two factors there are something more than this. The other important factors are – corporate friendliness, image of celebrity, brand personality of celebrity.

Marketers claim that Shah Rukh Khan’s appeal cuts across age, gender, and class, and blends the characteristics that mirror multiple identities – the ordinary middle class guy who went on to became the King. The king is a traditional and family loving Indian.

The biggest plus about the actor Shah Rukh Khan is that he holds self-made man image. The common Indian man associates with him and aspires to become Shah Rukh Khan. In last few years Akshay kumar has also attained status of self-made man which is challenge to the king. The other plus about Shah Rukh Khan is his image of down-to-earth, approachable person and his ability of straddling the classes and the masses. He is not niche actor like Aamir, and not even a down market actor like Govinda. In this parameter also Akshay kumar has taken a lead. This new image of the Bollywood star Akshay kumar can be a threat to the Shah Rukh Khan’s endorsement kingdom.

The fact that Shah Rukh Khan has been so overexposed by advertising leaves little room for credibility among consumers. I can’t imagine Shah Rukh Khan driving Huandi Santro or i10 but the fact that the Shah Rukh Khan’s fans still associate him with the products is doing wonders for him.

Amitabh Bachchan – The Biggest Celebrity Endorser of All Time

The celebrities are super achievers like Amitabh Bachchan, Sachin Tendulkar, Shah Rukh Khan. The celebrity has a life cycle. Among all Indian celebrities, Amitabh Bachchan is an exception. He is beyond the normal life cycle of a celebrity in terms of endorsements. Amitabh Bachchan is popular with possibly all demographic, psychographic, geographic. He commands respect across the length and breadth of India, cutting across the barriers of age, income, region and language. Today he is not only one of the successful actors but also one of the most successful endorses. Having said this I must talk about the fact that during the first two-and-a-half decades of his acting career when he was called the one-man Hindi film industry never endorsed any product.

Amitabh Bachchan
Amitabh Bachchan (Amitabh Harivansh Srivastav), born on October 11, 1942 in Allahabad, Uttar Pradesh is one of the most prominent Indian film actors of Bollywood. Amitabh Bachchan is known for his deep, baritone voice. He before entering the film industry applied for a job with All India Radio for the post of a news announcer, for which he was rejected – probably a destiny’s call. The actor also did Playback Singing for many Indian movies. The actor has also endorsed many brands and is one of the leading celebrity endorsers for Indian corporate world.

Birth of Endorser Amitabh Bachchan
In year 2000 Amitabh Bachchan, anchored Kaun Banega Crorepati (popularly known as KBC ) which positioned him into the league of the most expensive endorsers. The phenomenal success of KBC helped marketers realize that Amitabh Bachchan single-point attention-grabber. He is one Indian celebrity who could not only command attention but also lend his credibility status to the brands. He has been brand ambassador of products across industry and categories including Pepsi, Mirinda, ICICI Bank, Parker Pens, Reid & Taylor, Maruti Versa, Cadbury’s, Nerolac, Hajmola, Navratna tail, Emani Boroplus, Eveready, Dabur, Sahara city Home, D’damas, Binnani.
Amitabh Bachchan, before success of KBC had probably endorsed just one brand in mid nineties which was a corporate branding exercise for BPL. The campaign managed to position BPL as an aspirational Indian brand. After success of KBC he has endorsed brands in product categories as diverse as banking, soft drinks, batteries, paints, chocolates, automobiles, writing instruments, apparel, diet supplements, personal care and real estate.

Challenge for Endorser Amitabh Bachchan
It is believed that if the endorser is associated with many brands, exclusivity can no longer be associated with the celebrity. The audience gets confused when the same celebrity plugs many brands and hence the endorsement value gets eroded. In recent times, Amitabh Bachchan endorsement list has come down but he still endorses brands in double digits. And in my view most of his brands he endorses are doing good. I believe, if it was not Amitabh Bachchan the marketers would have been struggling with the ideas. Marketers can position Amitabh Bachchan as an action hero; an energizing personality; a jovial character; an advisor; a spokesperson; Mr. dependable and not to miss a passionate endorser – there is lot in Amitabh Bachchan which is unexplored. Having said this strongly advocate that marketers needs to use the celebrity power of Amitabh Bachchan judiciously.

Idea of Positioning and Differentiation

The two different books positioning and differentiation says the same thing. The book by Jack Trout on differentiation – Differentiate or Die is repackaging of his book coauthored with Al Ries on positioning – Positioning: The Battle for Your Mind. In my views when Jack Trout separated from Al Ries wrote Differentiate or Die to position Trout & Partners Ltd. Truly a positioning genius. I strongly believe that it hardly matters what you call the activity of buying share of consumer mind – positioning or differentiation you are doing same thing.

Brand managers across globe are busy differentiating their products or say working hard to position them. However, the major problems with most of the companies are that they don’t understand the concept of differentiation or positioning. In most of the cases they work on differentiation for the sake of differentiation. The situations in a few cases are so grim that some brand managers really don’t know the difference between a name and a brand. Addressing similar situation, Sergio Zyman, and Armin Brott says that If you don’t keep giving customers reasons to buy from you, they won’t. Awareness is absolutely worthless if it doesn’t lead to sales. In my views one can’t blame the brand manager solely for the problem. The problem of positioning also depends on the proliferation of me-too products. Today any company can come out with almost similar product that their competitors have within a few days.
The brand managers of successful brands take their brand for granted. They don’t work on them regularly and as a result the charisma of brand goes down. It is vital to remember that even the strongest brands don’t stay their way without working on them regularly. They need repositioning or for your convenience you may call it brand maintenance. The brand needs to be renewed or redefined constantly, else it will die.

The market analyst firm also correlate branding with the data analysis and ROI of marketing; and few other marketers believe that it’s advertising which position products. In my vies branding is not only about advertising and data analysis – it’s also about understanding how consumer lives are changing and how is it impacting consumer preferences. I believe branding is also about developing and implementing strategy which is grounded on a deep understanding of consumers that connects companies. Authors, Sergio Zyman, and Armin Brott in their book The End of Advertising as We Know It says that Advertising is a lot more than just television commercials – it includes branding, packaging, celebrity spokespersons, sponsorships, publicity, customer service, the way you treat your employees, and even the way your secretary answers the phone.

Celebrity endorsement – Cricketer’s loss is Bollywood’s gain

Bollywood Rising

The cricket celebrity brand endorsement is declining. The number of brands endorsed by Sachin Tendulkar has dropped from ten to six over a period of five years, Rahul Dravid endorsement list has come down to six from twelve and Sourav Ganguly is endorsing barely has a couple of brands today. The only exceptions among cricket celebrity are MS Dhoni and Yuvraj Singh, who have grown their endorsements year-on-year. at the same time the film industry has gain importance in recent years. The silver screen celebrities like Shah Rukh Khan, Hrithik Roshan, Saif Ali Khan, Aamir Khan, Akshay Kumar, Sanjay Dutt, Abhishek Bachchan and John Abraham are few of the celebrity who has gained prominence in recent years.

Shah Rukh Khan’s endorsements have gone up from 6 to 18 in the same period, Hrithik Roshan’s have increased from 1 to 11 and Saif Ali Khan’s deals have doubled from 4 in 2003 to 8 now. Amitabh Bachchan, who has gone down the power list in the last two years, has managed 10 endorsements deals. Other Bollywood stars like Aamir Khan, Akshay Kumar, Sanjay Dutt, Abhishek Bachchan and John Abraham have between 3 and 7 deals in their pockets.

Cricketers were the favorites of PepsiCo till last year has signed up movie stars including Deepika Padukone, Ranbir Kapoor and Katrina Kaif.

Among women celebrities Kareena Kapoor endorsement count has gone up from two to five, while the number of brands Katrina Kaif, Kajol, Priyanka Chopra and Bipasha Basu endorse has risen from almost nil to about six to seven each. The new celebrity such as Deepika Padukone and Vidya Balan are endorsing three to four brands each. The new celebrities are in demand and they are expected to sign a few more. The best part about the silver screen is that the senior actors like Hema Malini and Juhi Chawla have multiple endorsement deals.

End of cricket (sports) celebrities as we know it

Gone are the days of senior cricket players like Rahul Dravid, Sachin Tendulkar, Sourav Ganguly, and Anil Kumble from the list of trusted celebrities. The number of brands endorsed by Sachin Tendulkar has dropped from ten to six over a period of five years, Rahul Dravid endorsement list has come down to six from twelve and Sourav Ganguly is endorsing barely has a couple of brands today.

The young Indian team is popular and happening. Advertisers believe that audience follow performance and they put their money on players who are showing results. The T20 team after 24 years won a world cup and they are the real heroes. Now advertisers trust young and happening players like Yuvraj Singh and MS Dhoni. In current scenario, Yuvraj Singh and MS Dhoni commands over INR 2 crore each endorsement deal. While the younger players like Rohit Sharma and Uthappa are charging around INR 30-40 lakh per endorsement.

MS Dhoni endorses 7Up, GE Money, TVS Motors, Videocon, Titan besides a plethora of other brands. Moreover he is one of the few cricket celebrities who are endorsing brands in double digits. Today advertisers prefer the silver screen celebrities over cricketers.

Brand Endorsement – Rise of New Celebrity

Katrina Kaif has replaced Aishwarya Rai Bachchan as the brand ambassador of Nakshatra Diamonds is one of the many replacements of senior queens by new celebrities in endorsement race. The bollywood queen such as Rani Mukherji, Preity Zinta and Aishwarya Rai – who were towering till recently are suddenly finding themselves out of the reckoning.

The growth of the new celebrity is also evident from the fact that senior actress such as Rani Mukherji, Preity Zinta charge between INR 85 lakh and INR 1 crore per endorsement, which is much less than what Kareena Kapoor or Katrina Kaif charges which is around INR 1.5 crore.

New celebrities such as Asin, Genelia DSouza, Katrina Kaif, Imraan Khan, Harman Baweja, Kangana Ranaut, Jiah Khan, Ranbir Kapoor, Deepika Padukone and Farhan Akhtar are attracting advertisers attention. In recent time these new celebrities have signed various endorsement deals. These new celebrities are not only signing new endorsement deal but also replacing veteran celebrity in most of the cases. The demand of the new celebrities is so high that that have option to choose from the list of brands. Jiah is said to have recently turned down INR one crore offer from the brand Miss Bikini India 2007. She refused to pose in a bikini for the brand.

No doubt this is the best phase for newcomers in Bollywood but they have to sustain themselves for another three-four films before they become a big endorsement star. A stars brand value remains intact if he or she delivers hits. It is important to maintain a high success rate to negotiate for the next big deal in terms of remuneration. The senior actress such as Rani Mukherji, Preity Zinta and Aishwarya Rai in recent past has not given any big hit and hence their brand value is depleting. The failure at the box office has also impacted the celebrity endorsement deals. In last one year Nestle India dropped Rani Mukherji, as its brand ambassador for the Munch brand of chocolates. Nestle ended a four- year association with Rani Mukherji and signed South Indian actress Trisha. The actress Trisha has also replaced Preity Zinta in the Scooty Pep advertisement. Preity Zinta in recent times has lost her association with brands such as Perk, Liril, BSNL, and Santro.

Brand Endorsement – Power of Two

In recent years advertising world has discovered power of two. The celebrity couples are manipulating their publicized relationships to rake in the moolah at a professional level. The star couples Abhishek Bachchan and Aishwarya Rai, Ajay Devgan and Kajol, Ranbir Kapoor and Deepika Padukone, John Abraham and Bipasha Basu, Saif Ali Khan and Kareena Kapoor are signing multi- crore contracts for lucrative advertising campaigns. Moreover, the celebrity couples are signing endorsement deal together to prove the point that they are together. The advertisers are enchasing the couple power to promote the brand. In recent times the celebrity couple Saif Ali Khan and Kareena Kapoor has signed endorsement deal with two brands Head & Shoulders and Airtel.
In the Head & Shoulders ads the couple – Saif Ali Khan and Kareena Kapoor is shown first time together. Though Kareena Kapoor is shown just for a few seconds in the shampoo advertisement but it is already attracting eyeballs. In other cases Ajay Devgan and Kajol have been seen in ads for Whirlpool and Tata Indicom, Ranbir Kapoor and Deepika Padukone are seen in the Clinic All Clear campaign and Ranbir Kapoor and Deepika Padukone shared smallscreen space in an ad for cola giant Pepsi. Companies are often ready to pay an arm and a leg to get real life couples on reel. Ajay Devgan and Kajol, command INR 6- 8 crore per deal, while Abhishek Bachchan and Aishwarya Rai, command almost INR 10- 12 crore for a campaign. Ranbir Kapoor and Deepika Padukone easily commands INR 6- 8 crore per campaign while John Abraham and Bipasha Basu command INR 5- 6 crore per deal.

Idea Cellular new campaign “Education for all”

Idea Cellular has launched its new Ad Campaign with its Brand Ambassador Abhishek Bachhan. The ongoing campaign with a spotlight on “education for all” has attracted many eyeballs. It is one of my favorite advertisements.The campaign highlights the power of Mobile telephony to address the socially relevant theme of education. Campaign has been promoted through print, television, out of home, digital and on ground activities.

Storyline

In the campaign Abhishek Bachchan has played the Head of an educational institution – a priest and the principal of the school. When challenged by the traditional, physically bound classroom methodology that prevents reaching out to many who are in need of education, he uses mobile telephony to overcome the barrier.

Campaign Phase One – Teaser: In the first phase which is a 10-second teaser Abhishek Bachchan is shown as sitting and wondering how to educate the country’s children who can not manage to go to school. He suddenly looks up with a confident smile on his face and says ‘Idea’.

Campaign Phase Two – The Message : The second campaign which is a 90-second TVC opens with a village girl. The commercial shows that the village girl did not get admission in a school as there were no vacancies. The priest and the principal of the school, Abhishek Bachchan, looking for a solution suddenly comes up with an idea of starting mobile classrooms where teachers have mobile phones with them on their desks and children are shown in the ground and listening to the classes through mobiles. The campaign came to me as a great idea with strong social message. Idea Cellular, as a company, in its previous campaign also focused on social issues with the theme of bringing people together like in the campaign’s of caste war, and cultural differences SMS.

Campaign Phase Three – Impact : The third phase of the campaign has impact of education for all. It shows how the parents of the school going students are behaving. They are also learning through their children.

Idea Cellular as a company believes that an Idea can change lives and this is the central thought of the brand which they have been following since beginning. The company to increase the impact of the campaign has tied up with Nanhi Kali, an NGO and NDTV to promote this campaign of education for all, especially girl child.

Company – Idea Cellular
Brand – Idea Cellular
Theme – Education for all
Creative agency – Lowe IndiaFilm – Chrome Films

Consumer Generated Media

Consumer Generated Media describes a variety of new and emerging sources of online information that are created, initiated, circulated and used by consumers intent on educating each other on products, services, brands, personalities and issues.

– Neilson Buzz matrices.

Pete Blackshaw, CMO for Nielsen Buzzmetrics, coined the term “consumer generated media” (CGM) to describe the evolving consumer-created space on the internet. CGM refers to posts made by consumers within online venues such as internet forums, blogs, wikis, and discussion lists, on products that they have purchased, questions they have or problems they are trying to solve. CGM is constantly evolving in terms of form and content. A few prominent websites used for CGM include: Brickfish, Dailymotion, Digg, eBay, Facebook, Flickr, MySpace, Picasa, Revver, Second Life, TripAdvisor, TypePad, Wikipedia, WordPress, YouTube, bigadda

The most common consumer hangouts in the CGM spaces are: Discussion boards, Blogs, Wikis, Social networking sites, News Sites, Trip planners, Mobile Photos sharing sites, Videos sharing sites, Customer review sites, Experience or photo sharing sites. The CGM supporting sites can be divided into five different categories for better understanding. They are,

Blogs: A Blog is the collection of web log where publisher shares his stories, fantasies or experiences. The wordpress, blogger, bigadda are the famus platforms which offer blogging experience.

Message Boards or Discussion Forums: Interest-focused message forums and discussion boards like citehr, are the most prominent content sharing tool. This concept was evolved from the Tech World where techies discuss their problems and experts offer advice to the fellow techies. Now this concept has become common across verticals.

Review Sites: This is a popular place where an excited customer spread positive word and an irate customer vents his frustration. Mouthshut is one of the famous review site.

Groups: These are highly focused and specialized groups or communities where the members exchange ideas in the virtual world. These clubs are an offshoot of the Mail groups where one can connect with their friends through group mails like Yahoo, Google offers platform to create groups.

Communities: Communities like Orkut, facebook, you tube, Flicker, linkedin offer networking and socializing opportunities to the Internet savvy individuals. Started as a socializing tool, these communities grew as an influential media for marketers.

The idea of CGM has evolved from its early roots of consumer feedback via online letters and email to encompass new media such as video, pictures and social networking sites. The phenomenon, CGM is a nightmare as well as an opportunity for marketers. It is a nightmare since the marketer has no control over the media or the message, an opportunity because if used wisely, it can turn out to be a new medium and an invaluable source of customer information.

Mobile Advertising – Fair & Lovely

Reliance Communications mobile ad campaign – Fair & Lovely Scholarship programme 2007 has been adjudged winner by the Mobile Marketing Association (MMA) Annual Global Awards jury at a glittering ceremony held in Los Angeles in November 2007.

Fair & Lovely is a leading and one of the best-selling skin care brands of Hindustan Unilever Limited, had launched an ad campaign of ‘Fair and Lovely scholarships for women,’ using short code (51234) and instant voice from mid-August to mid- September, 2007. Reliance Communication executed a pan-India ad campaign on Reliance mobile phone network. Fair & Lovely Scholarship programme 2007 mobile advertisement was powered by clickable banner ads in various languages. These banners were linked to a micro-site where interested candidates were asked to provide their choice of course, annual family income, etc.

Reliance Communication also created a special Fair & Lovely Scholarship Zone on ‘R World’ to promote the campaign and generated around 50,000 leads in which 60% came from tier II and III cities and 40% from urban cities. The Fair & Lovely Scholarship programme 2007 campaign got great response from the semi urban and rural India, which also break the myth that the mobile advertising can only be targeted to the urbane India.

The innovative mobile ad campaign has been voted as the Best Use of Mobile Marketing in the Direct Response Category of the awards. This is also the first time in the world that a scholarship programme has been advertised on a mobile platform. The other nominations were, Affle Limited & Aviva (India) Pvt. Ltd. for Aviva – Cost of Postponement; MindShare Interaction India for Mobile Test Saves Time and Lives in India; Mobile Dreams Factory for Renault Twingo; SendMe Inc., MobiTV, Fathom Online for Discovery Channel Discovery Channel’s Shark Week and Vibes Media for Dumped were nominated for the

Mobile Advertising Case – Indian Association for Promotion of Adoption and Child Welfare

Indian Association for Promotion of Adoption and Child Welfare (IAPA)

Successful messaging doesn’t always need a big media budget. What it really needs is a media channel that compliments a powerful creative idea. Indian Association for Promotion of Adoption and Child Welfare to launch a campaign on child adoption used a MMS campaign. The campaign uses the viral nature of MMS (video message on mobile) to spread awareness about abandoned infants who need a caring home.

The Indian Association of Adoption and Child Welfare campaign was titled “The hottest MMS ever – If you don’t like it, pass it on.”

In the 25-second video Indian Association of Adoption and Child Welfare tried to create awareness about abandoned infants and convince people for their adoption. This campaign was a huge success. The promoters were reconnected in three days from all parts of the nation with the same message. The discussion forums also generated a very good response. In fact, the first week witnessed all of 1,210 downloads and clips were traced to eight other servers.

Mobile Advertising

The business of encouraging people to buy products and services using the mobile channel as the medium to deliver the advertisement message
                                                                                               — Internet Message Access Protocol

Mobile advertising is an innovative and a customer-centric approach to reach promising customers. It includes advertising in the form of Short Message Service (SMS), mobile alerts, Multimedia Messaging Service (MMS), mobile games and videos. Mobile advertising can be divided into two main categories: Mobile Push Advertising and Mobile Pull Advertising. Mobile Push Advertising, can be in form of solicited or unsolicited advertising News alerts, job alerts and cricket score alerts are a few examples in this category. Mobile Pull Advertising, on the other hand, is defined as advertising when users request for the services from the service-provider for instance daily horoscope.

Mobile advertising is the latest buzz in the field of advertising, since it is a cost-effective way to promote and inform the target customers. With the advent of new media, mobile advertising has become one of the most demanding and integral part of marketing mix.

Benefits of Mobile Advertising
Mobile advertising is cost-effective and offers flexibility to inform target group as and when required. In the case of mobile advertising the advertising message can be personalized with respect to Target Audience. The mobile advertising is interactive in nature and advertiser gets feedback immediately. Though mobile advertising offers flexibility to contact target group as and when required. It also gives option of permission-based advertising, which is also governed by telecom rules and regulations. The mobile advertising is still not brand creator but it is more helpful in brand recall and brand interactivity. The benefits of mobile advertising include: flexibility of content, speed of reach.

Limitations of Mobile Advertising
Mobile advertising has limited message content. It is mostly driven by key words and target audiences in most of the cases take mobile advertisements casually. Moreover it still has very limited reach as compared to other conventional tools of advertising. The visual display is not as impressive as TV advertising. Though the advertiser has more control on the mobile advertising but still cant calculate ROI of advertising more accurately. Most importantly, mobile advertising is often criticized for intrusion of target audience privacy.

Guidelines for Mobile Advertising
The Mobile Marketing Association (MMA) has published guidelines for mobile advertising. These guidelines are designed specifically for the Asia-Pacific region to encourage the use of mobiles for advertising-related purposes as well as its acceptance by marketers and consumers.

As of now it is not in practice. There are companies, and advertisers violating the defined guidelines but we are moving in the direction where the advertising world will take it seriously.

Conclusion
Mobile Advertising is at infant stage of the life cycle. The share of advertising spend on mobile advertising is minimal but when advertising spend is seen from the lenses of life cycle it is a good start.

Mobile Advertisement to touch INR 500 crore in 5 years

Reliance Communications, is pioneer of mobile advertising in the country, has effectively offered mobile advertising solutions for more than 20 clients over the past four years. In my understanding, the mobile advertising, started with LG during World Cup Cricket in 2003. Reliance Communications has also handled Cadbury’s, Coke, Maruti, Hyundai, ICICI, Kotak and HDFC. The mobile advertising in India is at nascent stage it is roughly INR 40 crore industry but advertisers in India are looking to cash in on the mobile advertising as potential tool of advertising. Experts predicts that advertising spend on this medium is expected to jump more than ten to twelve-folds to touch a size of INR 500 crore in next five years.

Mobile advertising can attract advertising spends from integration with below-the-line budgets, retail budgets and the digital budget. The bottleneck, however, is the unreasonable cost of Internet on mobile and also disproportionate sharing of revenue between telecom service providers and advertisers. The mobile advertising is demanding even playing field from internet and mobile providers. The operators, at present, are acting as a gatekeeper and commands control over the revenue distribution. Currently mobile advertising revenue is split at 70:30 ratio between operators and the companies, which gives very little scope for the growth of the mobile advertisers. Moreover, the operators have to stop acting as gatekeepers to the Internet and allow consumers to access content and services on the Internet easily and cheaply, using their mobile devices.

The mobile advertising market which is currently valued at INR 40 crore can grow more than nearly twelve times provided the telecom companies offer open Internet access at low rates along with standardization of regulations.

Reference: http://www.business-standard.com, Mobile ads to touch Rs 500 cr in 5 yrs: Experts, June 22, 2008.

Changing face of Indian advertising mascots

Air India’s Maharaja which came into existence in the year 1946 and the Amul girl in 1967 are the mascots which captured the hearts of one and all in India. These mascots caught the attention of the consumers as they were charming and connected well with the consumers. Indian corporate have also seen few other mascots like Fido the cool swanky doodle of 7 Up, doughboy the sweet little butler of Godrej Pillsbury, Gattu who build brand Asian Paint, Chintamani who endorsed ICICI, Sunny who is creating magic with Sunfeast. The success of these mascots can be qualified by, the increase in the brand value of these brands consumer connect.

Decline of mascot power
The Indian market grew at a fast pace in nineties everything from pencils to cars, salt to luxury goods required an advertising campaign this was the time when we saw emergence of celebrity advertising and mascots lost their appeal. We also lived in a time when there was no argument regarding the fact that a celebrity can make or break a brand. The pampering and recognition given to the celebrity in the marketing of the product in some cases was even greater than the product itself. The advertising world, during this time strongly believed that the celebrities transfer their success, personality, status and power to the brand. They attributed reasons for the growth of celebrity endorsements to:
• Create great brand awareness for product
• Sustaining the brand image
• Stimulating and reviving brands
• Product association

However, the advertising world also realized that many brand ambassadors does not practice what they preach and sometimes controversies and unpleasant incidents connected with the celebrity causes damage. It is also observed that over exposure and multiple endorsements too can damage the image of product. The Indian market which is saturated with celebrity endorsements has seen emergence of the mascots.

Emergence of the mascots
The courage and optimism that common man of R. K. Laxman portrays and a middle-class Indian, that Chintamani portrays is certainly unmatched but the new age mascots are more attractive, and trendy. The advertisers have become more creative with the use of animation. The new age mascots have a lasting appeal and create a whole new persona for the product. They manage the product as efficiently as a celebrity. Moreover, in the current marketing scenario when the celebrity charisma diminishing away the world of advertising is turning back to mascots.

Celebrities get associated with too many products and therefore it is difficult to relate them with one particular brand, which is not the case with the mascots. For an example Shahrukh Khan endorse brands such as Pepsi, Airtel, Santro, Emami , and many more but Fido is just associated with 7Up. The strength of mascots lies in its uniqueness, and its power of effectively communicating the ethos of the brand like, Chintamani solves all our worries related to tax savings and good returns paving a new way for no chinta, Share Khan tell us how to smartly invest in stocks and reap rich dividends, Gattu with the brush in his hand and the smile on his face passes the message that a bright coat of paint will brighten up the house. Moreover the mascots are not as expensive as celebrities. The cost of creating these characters is as low as development of a normal commercial. Lowe Advertising creative director Delna Sethna claims that the first Chintamani ad cost around Rs 7 lakh. Moreover, the animated characters also give more scope for creative-flexibility.

Mascots are dynamic and they adapt with changing times. We should acknowledge how the Amul girl in polka dots has changed overtime, and Fido has makeovers with the changing time. The advertising world has also observed that the popularity of any mascot is not only based on the response they get, but also depend on the fact that these faces have a higher recall value.

Conclusion
The Amul girl was born in 1967 is still a popular mascot. She may soon enter into the Guinness Book of World Records as the oldest campaign to survive in the market. This goes on to prove that the mascots are more appropriate brand ambassadors. The impact and success of the mascot, depends on how effectively it conveys the brand values and the ideals that consumers would associate with.