Some Cribs.....
- Kingfisher Surrogate Ad – I thought surrogate ads were banned in India. I saw some surrogate ads by Kingfisher recently. Does anyone know whether the Surrogate ad ban applies to the Kingfisher Mineral Water ad?
- How to name it – As part of my work, I had to talk to a vendor on some business issues. I got the name of the contact person and tried to call them. The name given to me was “Mahesh”. The voice on the other end was a female voice. She said “This is Mahesh here”. After speaking to her for a while I asked her to send me an email on some information which I required from the vendor. When I received the email I noticed that the sender’s name was Maheshwari. Is it desirable to have such nicknames which often leads to an identity conflict?
- Before & After – Not a day passes without looking at some Before & After ads in the newspapers. When I say Before & After I’m referring to Before this & After this ads by firms which are in the business of preventing hair loss and facilitating weight loss. These are the VLCC kind of ads which you see in India. It is hard to believe how much of this is really true. To me they all look like a sham.
- A not so good experience with Pizza Hut – Since I was working late last week, I ordered pizza for dinner on two of those days. On the first day they had given me a Pepsi PET bottle which was not cold. On the second day, I called their hotline to place my order. Based on the accent I could make out that I was speaking to a desi. I placed the order for my usual Veggie Lover’s Pizza. He told me that the Pizza is not 100% vegetarian. I didn’t know whether to thank him (for revealing the truth) or to yell at him to vent my anger. He said that the Veg Pizza is cooked in the same Pan as the other Pizzas and hence it is not pure veg. Since I didn’t have any choice I decided to go ahead with my order. I also ordered a bottle of Pepsi and requested them to send me a Chilled Pepsi. Although he said yes to the Cold Pepsi he didn’t sound very convincing. I asked him to reconfirm the “Chilled” Pepsi. He checked with someone and said that the Pepsi will be at “Room Temperature”. This is their way of saying that they don’t serve Chilled Pepsi. Why should somebody pay twice the price of a regular Pepsi to buy a drink (along with dinner), which is not served chilled?
posted by Kaps at
3:51 AM
6 Comments:
Sometime back, one of my collegaues name (Rohini Kumar) was included in a group mail. Lateron, during the project meeting I came to realise that the collegaue is a "he".... :-(
What about the "Fat loss" advertisements going around in the newspapers? I couldn't stand by those stories..65 kgs becoming 50 kgs in 1 month etc.,
By
Ram C, at 9:34 AM
Kaps, sorry to be dumb!! What is surrogate ads and why is it banned?
By
Anonymous, at 5:32 PM
Surrogate ad is an Ad thru which the advertiser is trying to advertise a fictitious product to reinforce the main / mother product. Kingfisher uses mineral water to remind customers of their main product. I don't think Kingfisher has a mineral water product in the market.
Few years ago Radico Khaitan used 8PM Apple Juice ads to promote 8PM whisky. There is no such product called a 8PM Apple Juice.
Cigarette manufacturers also use surrogate advertising. Red & White (Godfrey Phillips) instituted an award called Red & White Bravery award and tried to promote their cigarette brand.
By
Kaps, at 5:47 PM
Buggah
There is an actual product called 8PM apple juice, as is a product called Haywards 5000 soda. It's just that these products are not highly available :P They are registered on paper, and 1 small lot is produced, to allow companies to get around laws that mandate you to not advertise booze!! Net of it, surrogate advertising is a cool way of overcoming stupid governments who impose their morality on consumers. In the end, it is the consumer's choice whether to drink or not. An ad won't make it any more aspirational, and not advertising it won't make it any less appealing :)
Interesting aside - Surrogate advertising has led to a whole new revenue stream for a few companies. e.g. Bacardi started out with CDs called Bacardi Blast, given they can't advertise the booze. And then they discovered this was lucrative enough to actually make money on this!! So it's now an ongoing profit centre for them!!
By
Anonymous, at 12:42 AM
Tan,
Thanx a lot for the insight!
By
Kaps, at 12:50 AM
I don't think surrogate ads are banned in India.
As for the dude who told you about the non-veg pizza, you must actually be happy that he warned you. One person I know ate a lot of eggs before he realised eggs were not considered non-veg. It is safer to ask for 'vegan' rather than vegetarian.
Manoj
By
Lumbergh-in-training, at 12:40 PM
Post a Comment
<< Home