There have been good ads and there have been bad ads and then there have been really horrible ads. I have by nature been rather reluctant to put any ads in the last category as I have always maintained that to create anything it requires a lot of effort and if something were made in the first place there must have been some thought, some idea put behind it. But then for the ad that I am going to talk about I mean after having seen it so many times and trying to put together all my thoughts from the widest angles possible I really could not figure out that why in earth was such an ad made in the first place and then under the sun could the ad get passed by the clients to be shown on T.V. I hope that this review of mine would satiate the eternal complain of some of my regular readers like megs.4u and bharate who have been literally after me that for Christ for once write a review which is anti something and not always the goodie good ones that I do.
Making of an ad is a rather long drawn out process and as it should be because the kind of ads you make for your product/brand over the years kind of makes for the image of the latter and if you fail to make ads that talk sense to the audiences more often then you would find that your product is the centre of SMS jokes and ridicule. And I daresay that RIM have made some rather stupid and tasteless ads over the years right from their rather famously infamous dhirubhai ambani ka sapna campaign to the kar lo duniya mutthi mespots to sehwag ki maa ads to what have you. I am not quite sure they have put any thought process behind the ads that they churn out with such amazing speed and especially the ads that they have made with Sehwag are downright dumb ones.
Food for thought Sometimes I wonder if the kind of celebrities that are there in the ads has any bearing on the quality and storyboard of the ads or what. Let us take it a bit further, he have Sehwag who has this image of a village boy who made it big, someone people look up to terms of how he was able to come through the ranks despite of his roots, someone people sometimes associate with being a ruffian and a carefree person. Aren’t these some of the traits that have spilled over to the ads also, from him being this guy next door running around in stores as he suddenly becomes famous to him being so naïve to believe that mum has called in so I better hit a six and things? His other ads for Coke, Mayur Suitings and Boost have also been done rather tastelessly. Consider this why is it that some celebrities have cool ads and some have stupid ads. Why so that Aamir has classy ads while King Khan has lame ads? And they have toed the line for so many years with their ads being either good or bad. Do let me know your thoughts on this one.
Is bad good? After having seen the latest reliance ad that was what came to my mind instantly. Whether if bad publicity was good publicity or the same as being infamous was rather being famous only thing it’s the other way. For instance no matter how much we ridicule the dhirubhai ka sapna ads or for that matter the sehwag ki maa campaigns but then each time we talk about these ads we talk about RIM thereby ensuring high visibility and instant recall for the ad and the product. So much so that these tags have come to become part and parcel of the RIM brand image. But how much of this recall actually gets converted into customers is a different issue. Some brands have had this uncanny knack of making bad ads repeatedly, maybe they are also toeing the same thought process, as they say in Hindi gumnaam hone se accha to hai badnaam hue, gar naam na hota to badnaam kaise hote which translates to rather be infamous then being unknown, and if you weren’t famous then how could you have been famous.
Storyboard if there were one, for this ad is based on how the RIM phones have become so loaded with features at less cost. The ad show how a RIM user is having a tough time picking up the phone because it has become so heavy, and he is literally falling over the place and he is acting like a Hercules who is finding the weight of the phone unbearable. The expressions on his face are as if he committed the mistake of his life by buying such a mobile. It shows how after much effort when he takes the call only to find that the call was for his wife. And the exasperated expressions of ‘please not me’ on the face of his wife as she does not want to go through the trauma what her husband is already going through trying to hold the phone for long. The ad shows how he can’t even take calls for he is finding it hard to hold the heavy phone, now aren’t mobiles meant for making/receiving calls in the first place. The tagline goes as apna mobile banao morebile.
I am thinking again It was a nice thought on the part of the company to provide more for less to the consumers making RIM the preferred choice of communication. But then the ads kind of confuse the audiences and I am not quite sure if that was the intent of the ad makers and RIM in the first place. I thought the model should have been happy that suddenly he has so much features and services at such affordable rates. But going by his agony so wonderful depicted in the ad that does not look like the case to me. This leaves me scratching my head trying to figure out what they were trying to communicate in the first place. Were they enticing the consumers to buy their product or were they telling them beware, stay away from our phones because it lets you do everything except receive and make calls?
Put your thinking caps on Guys please, if someone like me who knows nothing about the intricate details of the ad world could make out how bad the ad was, you should definitely do better then me. The ad agencies should be accountable for the amount of money their clients pay them to make good ads, which would help their products sell. Also the marketing people in companies like RIM should not be sleeping when such ads get passed for media campaigns. Off late there has been a dearth of original storyboard and creative talents in the ad industry, people who can come up with ads, which do wonders for the products. Sometimes I miss the vintage ads of Cadbury’s or Fevicol or Bajaj, so much effort and thought was put into the ads and it really showed.
Well I have said enough, on that note I would sign off. I hope I have been able to play an able critic, please do let me know your honest feedbacks on my first not recommended ad review.
Questions
Which ad of RIM do you think was the worst and why?
Why do you think companies like RIM and Tata Indicomm have such lousy ads compared to a Hutch or an Airtel?
Which ad should be the next on my not recommended list and why?