Packer Cracker

"Khoob Jamega Rang, Jab Mil Baithenge Teen Yaar,
Mein, Aap aur Bagpiper Tetra Pak!"

Wait a minute! This is not me! But you actually just might see Mr. Sanjay Dutt promoting Bagpiper whisky, UB's Millennium brand, with these golden words which actually should never have been said, let alone repeated!

Bagpiper, our very own largest selling world famous in India whisky, is now selling whisky in Tetra Paks. The initial round of test marketing in Maharashtra is done and now the company is gearing up for a national launch.



I for one really cant imagine liquor in Tetra Paks of all things! Mango Frooti-Fresh and Juicy- Yes, Appy - Yes, Amulflavoredd Milk - Yes, Any Milk - Yes, Nestle Something - Yes. But Bagpiper Malted Whisky ? I think No.

Maybe because of the brands which are marketed in Tetra Paks, I would think of a youthful audience when I think Tetra Paks. My take would be youth, health food and nutrition when thinking drinks in Tetra Pak. Style, Strength and Machismo, the very feelings Bagpiper stands for, are the last things which will come to one's mind when looking at Bagpiper Tetra Pak.

Can we imagine a Sharaabi with Mr. Bachchan holding a Bagpiper Tetra Pak instead of that omnipresent bottle in his hand? Ok. That's way back. How about a Paro screaming Devdas with a Bagpiper Tetra Pak? Yup. I can hear him turning in his grave.

Let alone these two, but imagine any Bollywood scene when there's no smashing of bottles when the villain's drunk and angry. Instead we have the villain stamping the tetra paks coz he is frustrated, drunk and angry as he misses the bottle smashing!

Thats an exaggeration, of course, as UB plans to keep the bottles alongside Tetra Paks even in the 180 ml category.

On a serious note - Marketing for liquors is definitely not an easy job. Neither in India, with its share of ban on liquor publicity, nor in firang land. But when Bagpiper was doing absolutely fine with its own brand of surrogate advertisings, this change in packaging comes as a surprise.

Just to get a perspective of how well it was doing - here are the figures - 30% Mkt share, 12.6% growth against an industry avg. of single digit growth and 7.4 lakh bottles sales! So why change a winning formula?

The benefits sighted are brand innovation, tamper resistant packaging and benefits across value chain. I am no liquor connoisseur. Even then can make out that this packaging comes with its own share of problems. What happens if the consumer does not want to gulp down the entire 180 ml in one go. Will the taste remain the same during the second round of guzzling which might happen after x hrs or even a day?

Brand innovation is ok. Even if they would have come out with a pet bottle, it would have been an innovation. So Brand innovation is really not too strong a reason for switching to Tetras. Tamper resistant packaging they already had with the bottles.

Benefits across value chain? Here I say what benefits? There just might be a reduction in costs for the company which is really looking at improving its bottomline following the doubling of raw material prices last yr. But apart from that, benefits to the consumer are limited.

Even though UB has made an investment in the packaging and gone ahead and set up a whole plant with the facility to make Tetra Paks, it remains to be seen, how the Tetra Paks appeal to the Indian Macho man.

You can bet, if this is a success, then we'll have the other liquor majors also following suit. Seems like we just might have to get used to missing the clink of the bottles of the good ol days, when celebrating life with the paper cartons! Of course, thats not to happen in light years. Thank god for that.

Indian Sahara

I was in Mumbai this weekend. As I reached the airport to board my flight, I prepared myself for an uncomfortable and cold journey as I was traveling by Indian Airlines, rechristened, Indian.

I am accustomed to the cold atmosphere of the hostesses, bad food, unclean old seats, no leg space, scary service and air pockets as my several previous visits had also been through IA.

The first thing that surprised me was the attitude of the Air Hostesses which was almost bordering on pleasant! Now that was a welcome surprise because more often than not, one is greeted by a plastic smile on a middle aged face plastered with every possible shade of any possible cosmetic product.

Not this time. The Hostesses were pleasant and were greeting with almost a genuine smile. But the one who really took the cake was the Captain, Sumanta Roychoudhary.

Due to air traffic our flight was getting delayed while landing and the captain proactively informed the passengers on board that we were not being able to land as our flight was the 7th in line waiting to land. Thus, by informing the passengers in advance, the captain ensured that the airlines was not blamed for reasons beyond its control.

After encircling a few times over Mumbai, the Captain seemed to get bored, and suddenly we heard his voice informing us that since the Air Traffic was not letting us land we get a chartered trip to Matheran, very close to Mumbai (So that certain sections of the population do not protest). And then he proceeded to point out important locational details when we were circling Matheran.

This incident is actually the reason why I am writing this post. It made me sit up and take notice on a regular mundane flight. The confidence, pro activeness and good humour of the Captain caught me unawares. And its not that he was wasting the over expensive aviation turbine fuel also, as it would have been anyways spent circling the super busy Mumbai airport waiting for the landing signal, as all aircrafts do.

Compare this with our very efficient private airlines - Sahara in this case. I was taking a return flight back. The flight was delayed while take off for over an hour on the runway itself for similar reasons.

And here, after the much delayed take off, after serving dinner and after all passengers on board were half way through their dinner, did the Captain have time for a round of Sahara Pranaams. Though he did go overboard in this and his brief welcome speech lasted at least 5 minutes in which only he knew what he spoke. One could make out that the Captain was speaking to us but what was he speaking was a big question mark which nobody bothered enough to answer.

One thing that I could make out in his welcome speech - he was informing us that " There are 5 cabin crew to serve you and to make your journey pleasant.Only one female and 4 male hosts will be serving you during the flight"

Need I say more? After this sexist remark, one can only sympathize with that one female who is at his beck and call.

Experiences on both the flights were quite opposite to the notions I had from my previous travels. Where one is moving ahead , shrugging the complacency and gearing up to fight the competition the other is donning on the complacency coat after a good initial round of applause.

If this is the new dawn for the Indian, then so be it. After the risk that the airline has taken in dropping the airlines and keeping only the Indian, it now has more responsibility and it better live upto its name and ours too.

As for Sahara, with the recent opening of the international routes to private airlines, if this is the sluggishness that the airline displays, then it wont be long before Sahara is lost in the Jet speed of a Kingfisher, Spice a Deccan or an Indian.

We - The Change Catalysts

Welcome to 2005 - the period of massive transition in any brand look, name, logo, feel...you name it and you'll see that alls changed. From toothpastes, to airlines, to companies, to cities, to computers, to sim cards anything in any category of products that you were using, suddenly there is this change in colour or a change in constitution or a change in name or a change for change's sake that we have to get used to now, for reasons little known to us.

Wherever you go, they follow (Whether you want them to or not)

Hutch has gone Pink and Blue. Earlier Hutch was Orange. Fighting over a Brand name really makes sense coz the brand is the one that the customer knows, relates to and buys at the end of the day.So Hutch going all out in Mumbai is justified as in the Mumbai Circle, its brand name has changed from Orange to Hutch. But inother circles, changing a colour and increasing your already booming marketing spends for it is change for change's sake.

Fine I am ready to take it that in the agreement between Hutch and Orange there might have been something to do with the colour being used by Hutch. But then having a major mass marketing campaign just because you've changed from Orange to Pink is uncalled for. I would have been a little happy to see a good ad from O&M coz that is what I've come to expect from them for Hutch ads. But a pug running after a little piece of triangular pink paper just to show that Hutch is Pink, just points at the hurry in which everything was executed to herald the Pink.

We now have billboards and full page print ads with a woeful Hutch pug staring at us saying "Hutch is Pink". Great. Hutch has also tied up with Radio Mirchi for a 10 day period saying Mirchi is Pink (!!!!!!?????!!!) Red-Green-Mirchi = connection. But Pink-Blue-Mirchi = ????????? Total Breakdown!

I understand the importance of communicating the change. Hutch already is a huge spender in mass media. Its current marketing spends would have anyways helped it communicate the Orange to Pink transition. A good ad execution and normal media buying would have done it. Just relying on the pug to communicate that everything else remains the same in terms of functionality, only the colour has changed, is a little too much work for the poor pug. I hope some Animal Activists are taking note! :)

Sheher Sheher ki Baat hai

First Mumbai, then Chennai followed by Kolkata and now our very own Bengaluru. For the uninitiated, thats our Bangalore for you in the coming years. The Karnataka state government has proposed a name change for the capital city - from the Anglicised Bangalore to the very Indian Bengaluru.

Thinking of it, its all very patriotic, and a government has to do it sometime, so why not now? So what if the Indian-school-going-struggling-with-oh so interesting subject of-Geography- students are already burdened with learning the names of 28 states and their capital cities, 6 union territories, and the ever increasing number of new states and to top it all new names for older cities. Its a frenzy.

A city is also a brand. And a city like Bangalore aka Bengaluru which has been built as a brand the world over as the techie hub for India, will have its own share of problems. The Indian people are now by and large accustomed to the Bhartiya names replacing the Angrezo ke zamaane ka naam. But how will the IT honchos explain the bout of patriotism to the confused world market, where they have spent the better part of the last century building a brand name called Bangalore?

Changes are bound to happen as we move on, as the brands move on, their contracts move on...but the truth also remains that the only catalysts in this process of change are We,The People who have accepted and moved on with these changes, who've not changed our mobile nos. just because we dont like Pink and we liked Orange better, Who've just not changed the city coz we like the current name better.

We, The People who've accepted the changes being served to us and have moved on, giving our brands a chance to celebrate another life and giving our mass medias another reason to rejoice and laugh all the way to the bank coz a brand has been reborn.

Apologies

Apologies for not updating the blog post the last post.

I had been to Mumbai and was unable to get my hands onto an internet connection.

Learnings:

Present day updated unwritten rules: Will now update the blog before leaving for the destination with the tentative date when I would start blogging again.

Thanks for bearing with me.

India rules over Hindustan

When Rahul Kansal, Brand Director, The Times of India, gave the following brief to its agency - "We want to bring out the strength of the connection we have with the reader and the fact that TOI comes with a heritage, it has a history." - even he wouldnt have envisaged the clarity with which his brief would be executed by Agnello Dias of JWT.

The latest Times of India commercial begins with a dancing group handing out to a middle-aged couple a copy of The Times of India, pointing to news in the Sports section headlined, 'Prakash Mirajkar Selected'. The middle-aged couple are excited and the wife takes the paper to show the article to Pakia's grandfather.

The headline strikes a chord with the grandfather and he goes inside a spider-webbed room searching for something. From underneath a dust covered album, he takes out an old copy of The Times of India, turns to the Sports page and reads a story headlined 'Mirajkar dropped from India hockey camp'. He compares the two headlines and celebrates, leading to the frame – 'The Times of India, A day in the life of India'.

After a long time, a TV Commercial has evoked emotions that this one has. Not one frame is wasted. No celebrity casted, no tall claims. Just a clear briefing, very strong concept, a very creative agency and bang on direction. Just makes me wonder about the Airtels, Whirlpools, & Emamis of the world who've been investing lakhs on celebrity endorsements, but do not have one ad that I would like to recall later as a creative genius. Incidentally, the first Airtel ad that did strike a chord was again one without any celebs casted in it.

Apart from that, in the newspaper space, one of the recent TV Commercials that hit us was the Hindustan Times – Let there be Light ad, when HT was launched in Mumbai in July. The Brief to O&M – 'Superior Content'. And O&M gives us an ad which makes every person who doesnt read HT as a blindfolded person, stepping into puddles, letting their hands burn, bumping into walls, getting there clothes painted in black....a bit too much.

If I were from Delhi, HT's stronghold in terms of circulation, I would have still bought that to some extent. But in a Mumbai where HT was just entering, and which is TOI dominated since years, why would the junta believe that just because they have not been exposed to HT, and because they are on a TOI staple, they are blundering their way through life?

Also, the HT ad was on National Television, so even a Kolkata with a miniscule circulation of some 35-45K was exposed to this tall talk of Let There Be Light. Kolkata is dominated by The Telegraph who dethroned the leader The Statesman a decade or so back. So I understand if Statesman comes out with this ad, I would see them as fighting back for the top place. But then being hit by this ad from a HT on the TV and Hoardings ( !!!! Hoardings?? At least that they could have been restricted to only Mumbai or a Delhi!!) was completely superfluous in a city where they have no circulations to talk about, So I guess the attempt was to let there be a light circulation if not heavy.

When exposed to this, the TOI ad comes as a breather which restores my faith in TV Commercials for newspapers. This year, JWT bagged 17 Lions at the Cannes Fest with JWT India bagging its first Silver ever at the Cannes Lions. This TOI ad has certainly suited the Indian Pallette. Now, lets see whether its good enough for India's Largest Advertising Agency to win its First Gold at the most coveted International Advertising Festival. I for one would definitely be cheering for them.

Ghor Kalyug Hai !

Though with a good concept, Kalyug still would be counted as just another bollywood flick by me. I say the concept is good because blue films, sex scandals, international porn rackets are not the subjects which are handled by our usual bollywood movies. The concept even reminded me of Page3 but thats where all resemblance ended.

The story line is weak and very very predictable. At times you begin to wonder whether you could have written it better.The Director, Mohit Suri of the Zeher fame, has tried to do justice to the movie with sensible direction in some parts. Problem is, with a concept like this, one expects a punch, a sudden twist in the tale, a surprise, but all throughout you end up directing the scenes before the story actually gets there.

Though all points to the director for not letting it turn into a sleazy flick, which could have easily happened as they had a subject bordering on sleaze & Emraan-Sleaze-Hashmi going for them.

Two brownie points that the film has that might just make it click are - The Music and Debutant Kunal Khemu (The child artist in Hum hain raahi pyaar ke, Zakhm etc. - turned lead actor). Rediff.com reports:

Although Anu Malik gets top billing as the music director, it is the work of guest musicians that grabs brownie points.Rahat Fateh Ali Khan's soulful rendition of Mann Ki Lagan in Paap caught many music listeners' fancy. He impresses yet again with the soothing, gentle melody, Jiya Dhadak Dhadak Jaye.

More music to the ears comes in the form of the talented Pakistani group, Jal-The Band. Atif's husky voice zigzags to the peppery, if unconventional, pattern of Aadat. DJ Suketu spruces up the number with a volley of bouncy techno beats.

The tracks composed by Anu Malik are definitely not the ones that the movie would be known for or the reasons for the buyers who might buy the CDs. The two non - Anu Malik songs carry the whole movie along.

Kunal Khemu takes the cake and one cannot help but wonder that from the angry young boy in Zakhm in 1998 to a wronged angry youth in Kalyug in 2005, this guy has surely come a long way and if he plays his cards right....He definitely has some way to go.

And again unlike a usual sleaze flick, this film carries a message - to combat human trafficking. The Film points at women trafficking a majority of whom are forced into the flesh trade.

As reported in The Hindu : According to estimates by the United States Government, trafficking, involving one million people, is going on across international borders every year.

Closer home, NGOs like Apne Aap are working extensively with rehabilitation for women trafficked in India. It works on giving them an identity, vocational training & school referrals for their children among others.

With a serious subject such as this, sad storyline, ok direction, good acting by lead actors - Its a definite once watch from my end - If only to check out how lucky we are to have our cocooned normal life with our own share of welcome problems.

Getting Started

So finally I have my own blog!

After days of pondering, thinking whether I will be able to do justice to the blog, to write regularly, write sensibly(coz my writing bug leaves me after a short visit most of the times).......Here I am :)

In my blog I plan to write about things which arent very dramatic. Which most of the times will be experiences from my everyday life, which catches my eye, which provokes my thoughts, sometimes funny, sometimes not.....A journey I am about to begin.....And hope all who accompany me enjoy it as much as I would, coz at the end of the day....

"The journey is the reward :) " ( This ones for SCMHRD 2003 :) !!!!)