INTERNATIONAL PRINT ADS

Ok first and foremost, my sincere apologies to those handful readers of this blog (who read it because I make them) for having a long gap between my last post and this post. Another one of my MBA trimesters is coming to an end, due to which work loads have increased a lot.

In this post I'm sharing with you people all the kick-ass print ads that I have ever come across. These print ads are so brilliant that excellent itself would be an understatement. Check them out:

This first ad is from Leo Burnett New Delhi's think tank. A cute - cum - creepy image of Baby Ronald has been shown to symbolize a newly opened McDonald's outlet at Kimaya Kothrud. This ad was not that well received by the audience, as the baby looks more scary than cute.

This ad epitomizes the beauty in simplicity. A vanilla plain print ad by Western Union Money Transfer, which effectively shows how swiftly they transfer money from 'HERE' to 'THERE'.

When it comes to out-of-the-box advertising genius, you can blindly place your money on Fevicol. This brand, with the help of O&M India, has revolutionized creativity in Indian advertising. We all have grown up watching brilliant fevicol ads on TV. There were many Fevicol print ads, but this one with the horseshoe magnet, and the below one are my all time favorite. This ad below was not even released. And many people at first sight mistaken the magnet ad above to be that of Sun Microsystems. Check out this other ad:

Simply Brilliant. Isn't it?

This one is an ad for Aquafresh Toothpaste. No comments!

This one here is for a sugar free lolly-pop. Again, No Comments!!!

And now, two of my most favorite print ads ever. I have not yet come across any print or hoarding ad better than these two. When I first saw them, I could not help but applaud, and continue staring at them while showering praises for the creative genius behind them in my head.

This first one is for Nescafe. Nothing Wakes You Up Like Nescafe.

And this next one is for an Anti-Deforestation campaign. The copy reads, 'Save Trees. Trees Save.'

Hope you guys enjoyed these awesome print ads. I promise to bring you more as and when I come across them.

GOOGLE

The other day, my B-school professor of Business Policy taught us about Defensive Marketing Strategies, a type of marketing warfare strategy designed to protect a company's market share, profitability, product positioning, or mind-share. He mentioned that when companies get to defensive marketing, they start doing things to promote their products which they would have never done in normal circumstances. An example of this would be when the prestigious FMCG giant HUL bought out a whole day's ad slot on all the channels of Star Network, and later repeated the same on Zee Network. HUL had reportedly spent a sum of around 10 crore INR for a single day to buy the 1800 minutes of ad space across all the channels of Star Network. As a result, for that whole day, all Star channels displayed ads of only HUL products like Lifebuoy, Dove, Ponds, etc.

Within a couple of days of that lecture, I came across another example of the same. But this time, it left me flabbergasted. Google, a company that has always believed in product superiority over advertising, entered the domain of broadcast media. The search giant came up with its first ever television commercial during the third quarter of American Super Bowl, the most watched program in US television history.

When I came to know that Google had eventually succumbed to advertising on television, a medium that it had ignored for years, there was a negligible decline in the respect I had for this company. But then I realized I had judged too soon. Although I still disapprove of Google breaking out of its traditional stubbornness for not advertising on television for its search engine, I cannot deny the fact that I applauded loud for the simple genius of this ad. I have to admit, whatever Google does, it does it in style. Following is the ad titled ‘Parisian Love’, created by Google Creative Lab advertising agency and production firm 1^st Ave Machine:

LOOK: The look of this ad comprises of something that I’m sure every single internet user across the world would instantly recognize and connect to, the Google homepage. The whole ad is made on Google itself, and hence would instantly strike a chord with everyone.

CONTENT: This advert features all the various search functions of Google in the simplest and the most effective way possible. The ad shows all the functions that the search giant performs, including maps, flight tracking, spelling correction, dictionary definitions, and its newest development, translation, intertwined into a simple yet sweet love story of an American finding love in Paris.

CASTING: Nil

CONNECT: This ad epitomizes the saying that Simplicity is the ultimate sophistication. The ad is not only a tutorial to those Google users who were either unaware or unacquainted with certain features of Google, but also an interesting synopsis of almost all of Google’s features. I in fact find the ad so efficient and effective that it can easily make Yahoo and Bing devotees give Google a try.

OVERALL RATING: 4.5/5

                In spite of being a brilliant ad in every way possible, I still feel Google could have come up with a better slogan than ‘Search on’, which is the reason why I cut the 0.5 marks even after ranting so much in praise of the ad.

                Google’s entry in TV advertising domain is somewhat suggestive of the heat that Google has started feeling from its rivals Yahoo and Bing. However, considering that fact that Google still holds a humongous 90.5% share in the search engine market as opposed to the 7.8% share of Yahoo and Bing combined, it is too soon for this mammoth to go defensive.

SPOOFS: Be it a movie, a music video, or an ad, spoofs and parodies are always great fun to watch. And if you have already seen Google’s Parisian Love commercial above, you will understand how easy it is to spoof that ad. Here I’m sharing with you people two of the best spoofs of the ad I came across. Don’t miss them, they’re hilarious.

EPURON

Considering the two facts that this is the first post to my blog and that this blog is all about ads, I have to start it with the multi-award winning commercial-cum-short film by the German ad-agency Nordpol Hamburg. This advert, made by the production company Paranoid Projects and directed by Les Viking, was crafted for a Germany based multinational, Epuron. Epuron, one of the leading companies for project development and structured financing, has been active in the renewable energy market since 1998.

I first came to know about this commercial while watching an interview of Piyush Pandey, the executive chairman and creative director of the O&M (Ogilvy & Mather) agency, where he mentioned it to be one of his all time favorite ads. When I saw that ad, it instantly topped my list too.

Normally henceforth I would be briefing the ad I'm talking about in the post, but not in this case. Because the best part about this ad is its element of surprise in the end. When I was watching the ad for the first time, I kind-of got an idea what was going on within the first couple of shots itself, but that was because I had read the name of the commercial, and hence my mind had a link to figure the whole stuff out. This is the very reason why I'm not even mentioning the name of this ad in this post, because I want you all to experience the awesomeness of the moment when you realize what the ad is about. I, in spite of already having figured it out, couldn't stop myself applauding for the ad, sitting in front of my PC alone in my room.

Again, normally henceforth I would be talking about the ads on the basis of their look, content, communication, casting, and connect with the audience. But in case of this ad, it scores ten-on-ten in every department. Even though you might find the overall look a bit bland and insipid, akin to a Hollywood Classic, I'm pretty sure the way it starts itself is enough to keep you hooked on for the complete 2 minutes and 3 seconds. So enjoy the ad people.