The more things change...the more...2

Stumbled upon Russell Peters and his like and watched them on Youtube. Friends and colleagues too loved the irreverent , politically incorrect humor a lot of it poking at 'us'. Shows we are maturing in our worldview , we're longer sensitive to good humored cracks. We're more confident in our skins. And then I saw comments left behind on other sorta 'patriotic' videos and though many comments could be attributed to "others"...unnecessary jingoism and aggressive , cheap comments seemed to be commonplace.
The times...they are a changing...at both ,the hurtling speed after the glacial melts in the Himalayas and contrastingly , the turgid flow of the Hooghly as it meets the sea !

Keeping your smile Intact

The latest Vicco ad continues with it's rustic grammar but introduces a multi-national target group . A truly multi national group with people appearing to be from different parts of the world-West, East...they use the Vicco paste whereas the village headman uses the powder!
Guess this was to be expected given the way pop culture , movies have gone...NRIs , foreign stars...

The More Things Change...

...the more they remain the same.
TV viewers of the One-day cricket in India recently were 'treated' to an ad.

A red swimsuit clad PYT swimmingly emerges from the sea in a long-shot to end up in a closer shot (no pun intended). The shot ends there and there is a transition to the category/brand...a cement brand. A VO did link up the two,somewhere.
Where did this come from? A lot of us were wondering.
All communication , I believe, emerges from an 'complicit' model of consumer behavior that the creative believes engages with the consumer. What is the Complicit Model here? A lot of People Like Us (PLU) were tut-tutting away at this piece .
Guess what...we all noticed it in the sea of advertising , discussed it and even remembered the brand in many cases. Given that limited-overs cricket in India transcends class barriers , was the creative intent to cut through and register brand across target groups ? Was that the intent?
Was the Complicit Model that the category is dull boring one which needed the kind of treatment to get attention?
If so ,maybe it worked. Maybe the brand-owners are laughing all the way to the bank as we speak...maybe creating communication for all does require different mental models of the market? And not all of the models are what the chattering classes feel comfortable with.
Tell me what you think...

It's a changed market out there

Went to watch Transformers , the new movie at a multiplex. The experience brought home some simple ways in which the market has evolved. We have changed...
1.Patience - the movie was delayed by almost 45 minutes and we were all crammed in a small poorly ventilated space with no information as to when the ordeal would be over. The entire crowd waited in patience , chatting , even buying more popcorn and soft drinks further raising the multiplex owners' revenues! I can recall a time when there would have been mini-riot if no responsible 'manager' had not assuaged this crowd's anger. Have we been taught patience by those marketing at us?
2.Patriotism - our market seems to be more proud of being us.The national anthem seemed to touch and the respect and ramrod-straight backs did not seem at all forced. A far cry from where our audiences lumberingly got to their feet and slouched with a feigned patience.
3.Humour- An old well-'loved' and oft-seen ad for Vicco Vajradanti came on , they were running an ad seen ad nauseum (no pun intended) during I guess the good ol' DD days. The youngish audience hooted and had fun when the ad came on. Each scene was recieved with a new ripple of good-natured laughter. It was really fantastic. A time was when this would have got derisive hooting if did not meet the expectations...we have certainly deveoped a sense of humour. :-)