Pointy Haired Dilbert - Chandoo.org

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Ok, stop scratching, you might loose more hair than the common sense brand managers at vodafone lost.

Apparently these adds convey that Vodafone has solved the unsolvable conundrum of “talk-time” or “validity” by introducing a lifetime valid pre-paid card that also gives unlimited talk time. Wow, certainly a good move given the difficult choice pre-paid cell phone customer has to make by selecting one of “more talk time, less validity”, “less talk time more validity” and “mediocre talk time and mediocre validity”.

But Vodafone choose the most cryptic way to communicate this message across. They created visuals that have very little text and complicated meanings that I am sure not many pre-paid customers can comprehend. Anyone looking at zebra and thinking “is it white lines on dark skin” or “dark lines on white skin” and then immediately correlating that with “talk-time” or “validity” all while controlling the temptation to skip that page (containing the ad) in the magazine / news paper has my kudos.

what do you think? Should brands challenge people intellectually or just indulge in simple and easy to understand messages?

Also see earlier rants on Vodafone and Hutch: vodafone pug, Hutch Hindi ads

PS: Images are from AgencyFaqs

Time for another look at print ads, this time for the most bizarre of them all. Mind you, these are not awful or plain lousy ads, for any column-centimeter worth its area has a fair share of lousy ads, these are simply bizarre ads, the kind that will make you go - WTF?

The first one is from Lenevo slim monitors, they are so slim that you can cut a head off with them, who comes up with this stuff anyway?

This is even more bizarre, kanika digital printers that can print almost life like - really tasteless

Now comes itch guard, subtle and yucky

This classic wtfness displayed by Sahara global, I think they mean that you can visit the place, but.. why create such visually revolting ad for that?

I had post another lenevo ad for it displays intense lack of common sense on the ad designers part

Images Source: AgencyFaqs.

Also see: Best of Indian Outdoor Advertising, Few good Indian Print Ads

Huh! this has to be the most bizarre sari ever …

Related google stuff you may find odd: Google park bench, Google fools day present to time travelers, Google life

original source:New Launches

Take a look at the above screen shot of my inbox. Does any thing look odd? Of course it does, the amazing folks at IRCTC have decided to send a tempting summer vacation offer to me, not once but 5 times in the last 14 hours.

Despite having one of the finest Indian online customer data bases at their finger tips, the folks at IRCTC failed miserably in communicating with their customers about the exciting offers they have. (IRCTC is one of the very first and most used e-commerce site in India for making train reservations online) They ran a miserable campaign by asking people who do not understand how campaigning / advertising on internet / email works.

Running an email ad campaign is not distributing pamphlets or buying tv spots in prime time. You can not shove the message down your users’ throats, it doesnt work that way. These days mail clients are smart enough to recognize duplicate messages and they truncate the message automatically, they club similar messages together. So there is really no point repeating the same message every 4 hours.

What instead could work well is, a story, an user experience, a tempting offer customized for ME communicated in as few words as possible and sent out in a frequency that is not intrusive. Customers would love to listen, thats why they have dropped their email id and clicked that little check box on your registration page that says “I cannot wait to receive offers from you”, but that doesnt mean you should hand the list of email ids to your marketing department and order them to “run a campaign, for the next 3 months”. It doesnt work that way…

Also read:
Advertising that can ruin you - Indian Railways Case Study
More online advertising failures

I came across this brilliant ad from Citibank advertising their metro card for Delhi metro, see it yourself.

I have taken Delhi metro first time during my summer internship in 2005. The system was excellent even at that time. I felt proud riding a world class air conditioned carriage from my hotel to the heart of Delhi on a hot summer day all for a couple of rupees. “It works” that is the first thought that hit me. It must be a pain to buy tickets / passes the old way with cash every time (I am not sure if anyone else is offering a metro card / smart card, May be Delhi readers can confirm …?) thanks to Citi, that problem should be solved now.

All said and done, I sincerely wish we get an octopus card like system for this so that you can use it make the urban life a little better.

PS: Delhi metro ad link via Daily Humor

Spotted these two rather well done ads starring Dhoni. The ads glorify lungi-clad, wild-dancing, movie-loving Tamil spirit while promoting carbonated sweetened beverages and mechanized time indicators.

Dhoni Pepsi ad:

Dhoni Sonata ad:

However well done these ads are, I must admit that you will never probably see anything close to what is depicted in the ads anywhere in Chennai or Tamilnadu. Its time advertisers and brand managers took notice of the way people actually are.

Look at the above Vodafone ad, the latest one where a cute little girl is constantly getting help from a cute little pug in various situations while a beautiful jingle is played in the background. The ad ends saying that “Vodafone is all too happy to help you” when you need them.

Even though I am not particularly against cutesy looking beautiful ads, I strongly feel that when a brand goes out of its way to promise something, they better live up to it or customers start loosing faith in the brand. “We have a good brand ambassador (the pug) and highly creative advertising team hence we will make cute looking ads” is not always a good reason for starting another campaign. The campaign strength should correlate to what the brand is trying to offer.

For example, the vodafone customer service has been hostile and helpless to a bunch of my friends and to me on several occasions in the recent past. I am sure you know someone who felt bad after calling the customer care @ vodafone. So when I look at the ad all I could feel is “what a fraud” instead of appreciating the music or visuals.

I think marketing is nothing but effectively communicating(spreading) your ideas to others and advertising is just one of the ways of doing it. Often brand managers get carried away and assume advertising is “showcasing creativity” and this creates problems as the message and reality spread apart.

Can you think of some other brands that have fallen in to this trap?