When Silence Speaks Louder Than Words

Brand Bihar has lots of equity but unfortunately its all negative. The brand image of a place is created by it's people and their representatives. I think in this information age the later play a vital role in projecting a particular brand image as their day to day life is comprehensively covered by the  media.

In case of brand Bihar it is the irreprresible Lalu Prasad Yadav who has been acting as it's self- appointed "Silver Bullet" ( term coined by Regis McKenna, is a subbrand that is employed as a vehicle for changing or supporting the brand image of a parent brand) for the past two decades.

This loud mouthed Bihari is undoubtedly one of the most popular politicians in India and has won masses with his rustic charms. But in the process of gaining political mileage he has created a brand image of Bihar which subjects a common Bihari to lots of ridicules and mockeries in many circles. So Lalu has become a stereotype for Biharis.

The brand Bihar took further beating when Lalu name surfaced in the famous Fodder Scam and his subsequent imprisonment for the same. To keep the reigns of Bihar within his family he transffered the chair to his wife Rabri Devi. If Lalu was a silver bullet for brand Bihar his wife proved to be a "Platinum Bullet"( coined by me :)). She took the Bihar's brand image to its nadir.

Although Lalu's stint as union railway minister has done some good to his as well as Bihar's brand image but it is minuscule going by the size of the damge already done. Although it did turn around the image and fortunes of Indian Railways.

Circa 2005, Nitish Kumar is sworn in as the chief minister of Bihar bringing to an end the 15 long years of Lalu Raj. A man of few words he set himself at the task of undoing things his predecessors has done in 15 years of misrule. Now into the fourth year in office one can see the change brought about by the Nitish government. I agree tht going by the size of industrial investments it is nowhere near the leading states of India. I agree that Bihar is still awaiting its first IT company and software park. But one can sense the change in the air. One can say that Bihar has been put on the right track of development. 

Coming to the brand image it is more or less same with a negative brand equity. I think it will take another couple of years to bring the brand equity at zero level. And another assembly term for Nitish to make it substantially positive.

So whats the basic difference in the leadership qualities of Lalu and Nitish. I would say for so long you have  judged Bihar based on Lalu's personality traits and his image but to judge Nitish you have to see Bihar and the progress it has started to make. Because for this man silence speaks louder than words.

http://ibnlive.in.com/videos/90055/kings-and-queens-common-mans-leader-nitish-kumar.html

"Our Models Will Strip For You"

I know we are living in "interesting times"(famous chinese curse) and the economic downturn has taken its toll on campus placements all over the world. So under such circumstances the title of this post must have made you think that I am planning to start a "strip club" as my entrepreneurial venture. You must be thinking that I am using this medium to promote my new venture with the help of this catchy tagline. And I am pretty sure some of my friends will be salivating at the prospect of getting free passes to this club of mine.

Sorry to disappoint you folks, I have no plans as such. Actually this tagline was used in print ads to promote a product which does a better stripping job than those "models" of your dreams. And the product was a "Paper Shredder". Surprised.......... ? Well I went through the same feelings. This brilliant idea was a brain-child of one Mr. Mukesh Manik who started his career selling paper shredding machines. The advertising agency he hired failed to get him the expected sales result so he decided to come up with his own creative for the advertisement. He created an ad which used the title of this post as it's tagline and carried a picture of paper shredder and released it in the classified section of the newspaper.

The enquiries he received and the subsequent sales it generated surpassed his expectations. Believe it or not the ROI on the advertisement was 550%. The success of this whole campaign boosted his confidence in his advertising acumen and he went ahead to start his own agency called Encyclomedia Networks Pvt. Ltd, which is mainly into ambient advertising. Well I am feeling too lazy to go on explaining what ambient advertising is? So I will leave you with the link to their website so that you can discover it yourself. Happy exploring :)

http://www.encyclomedia.in/

"Coke vs Pepsi" - The Unforgettable Debate

We the first year students @ LIBA have been debating regularly for the past few weeks on every tuesday afternoon. So today being tuesday we met and debated this topic "Coke vs Pepsi". We had 3 speakers each taking sides of one of these two big brands and a moderator steering the debate in the right direction by sprinkling some "extra-gyaan" here and there.

Well the debate went on very well and was carried forward by audience for another one hour or so and was about to die its natural death when our moderator mentioned a billboard ad shown above. He asked our opinion about this ad and this was enough to reinvigorate the audience and the debate went on for another half an hour. The only "small" thing our moderator forgot to mention was on which day this ad was put up(wait for the climax).

So almost everyone  gave his opinion on "what made Pepsi to come up with such ad?". The agreements and disagreements could be heard all over the room. Someone said that Pepsi was trying to cash on the brand value of coke. Someone said the reason for this bonhomie was Pepsi wanted to convey this message to consumers that they don't perceive Coke as a competitor. Our moderator himself gave two good reasons behind Pepsi coming up with that ad(I don't remember his reasons though).

I also gave my opinion that this ad is more of a satire. It has humour in it. I asked the moderator about the year this campaign was launched and he was not sure about that. Well the motive behind me asking the year/date was to establish that Pepsi being a new-entrant to market might have used Coke's brand equity to build its own or to get some easy publicity. And then I gave this example of a lesser known girl putting up this message on billboard saying "She is less beautiful than Aishwairya Rai". Almost everyone agreed that the girl will be noticed and get publicity. They were able to draw analogies between the little known girl and Pepsi. And honestly speaking I felt proud that I have impressed people.

After the debate got over we went for tea in the canteen and excited, as I was, I came up with more examples wherein some brands use promotion strategies similar to Pepsi. The Jockey tagline "The next best thing to naked" was one of them. My logic was here Jockey is encashing on the comfort of "nakedness" perceived in consumers mind( don't get me wrong). So my whole point was it is not necessary that you equate yourself with some already established brand or idea, sometimes projecting yourself lower than that is very rewarding.

So after this eventful day at college I headed back to hostel feeling proud and happy. But my happiness was shortlived. Being an Ad-fanatic I googled for this particular Pepsi ad and when I took a good look at it the embarassment of being "April-Fooled" in February dawned on me shortly. This ad was put up on April 1st,2000. Trust me after these brief embarassing moments I laughed out loud on everyone who was part of the debate on this ad. On moderator, on the rest of audience and above all on myself. For a change I really enjoyed being fooled and hope others would also have.

Ad-orable

While browsing through some of the "Green Ads" on google I stumbled upon this brilliant billboard ad put up by Eskom Electricity a South African electricity firm.

Hats off to the creativity of the person who came up with this awesome idea. This ad is intelligent in true sense and I bet it takes a minute or two before the beauty of this ad sinks in.

Here the company is not just preaching but practicing the message they are trying to communicate. But brilliance has limitations, this ad will lose its beauty in daylight and thus misses 12 out of 24 hours for marketing this idea to its potential customers. I hope by now you would have got the true message of this ad afterall "Har Ad Kuch Kehta Hai" else try Mentos - "Dimag Ki Batti Jala De" ( no offence meant).