Hola!
So everybody has been raving about the Volkswagen Jetta print campaign published today(29th August, 2011) in the Times of India as a cover for the Bombay times. So why do so many people like it? I know why I don't like it for a whole range of reasons.
Okay, so they come up with a silvery, glossy 2 page paper featuring their ad. My question is: err, so? What's so creative about it? I mean, you could have done the same darn thing on the regular type of paper and people would still have looked at your 2 page broad ad, or at least glanced through it. Why spend so much money just to make your background silver and your paper feel thicker between my fingers?
At some level I may agree that, yes, it grabs attention of even the people who aren't interested in cars, but so what? You aren't reaching your audience in a much more effective way than usual. You aren't making eyeballs stick out, unwilling to leave your page. Maybe I am just being a cynic over here, but all I am saying is, the quality of the copy or the artwork has in no way seen any innovation or change from any other automobile ad. So is this ad deserving of any accolades? and if yes, on what merits?
Volkswagen had come up with a quirky print advertisement a few months ago too where they had an audio playing anytime the newspaper unfolded. Sorry, but I ended up not reading the newspaper that day. Okay, it was a cool idea, brilliant, creative. But it should have been left at that: an idea. I'm sure many did not read the Times of India that day (good for Hindustan Times, et al) and what about the paper AFTER the day was over? What happened to Eco-friendliness and CSR? Well, all in all, I'm sure the Volkswagen sure has a very good ad team (agency: DDB, if I am not wrong), however, it would be a lot cooler if they sort of channelized their creativity in a more economic and nature-friendly way. No?
Please feel free to add, subtract, divide, multiply to this post (I have been studying math lately). Criticism is just as welcome.
Au revoir!
Miss Bee.
I tweet on: http://twitter.com/#!/DevikaBharadwaj
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| The ad Sorry for the bad picture. It was too shiny a surface for my sony digital camera to capture. Joking. :P |
its a way of arriving with a bang...however,the fact that irks me is that our mighty newspapers are prepared to go to such lengths for cash for advertising!
ReplyDeleteTrue that.
ReplyDeleteAlso from the advertising point of view, who are you arriving with a bang for? Volkswagen is a niche product where as TOI is a mass medium. Somehow, the mixture of the two didn't make sense to me unless they want to advertise to a larger market. (Again what's the point when people like you and me who read it wouldn't even buy that car)
Another thing i thought of was that their contest also is twitter based, which again still isnt a very mass social networking medium. So they might as well would have done something creative with another print medium like a magazine or chosen a more niche newspaper supplement such as times crest or something. right?
ReplyDeleteI know very little about advertising. I would do something like this only so that my brand gets better recognition and recall in India, which maybe kind of makes sense for Volkswagen here.
ReplyDelete'As they say, any publicity is good publicity, be it good or bad,' considering this, if we ponder on few things, we now know that TOI must have earned a fortune by publishing the ad on the most expensive pages of a newspaper and that too on a Monday,
ReplyDeleteVolkswagen though didn't receive any accolades for it, the idea of brand recall as been achieved as people are tweeting about it, blogging about it n discussing it.People now know there is brand called Volkswagen. Ask people about Reva or Sonalika Rhino,and there will be silence.
All in all if we keep morals and ethics out of this, which we can, advertising wins at the end of the day....(Shock laga Shock laga Shock laga lagaa)
@ ascetic: they did get the attention, sure enough. But at what cost?
ReplyDelete@ Paresh: If it was TRULY successful, we'd be talking about Volkswagen and not an advertising faux-pas...
And why should we keep morals and ethics out of advertising? Our society is going through enough cultural and ethical damage anyway. So shouldn't we attempt to monitor it at levels where we can? Like in advertising? No?
Advertising IS a reflection of the society though.
ReplyDeleteNot always, is it?
ReplyDelete