Newspaper wars

On the 25th, The Hindu, Chennai's oldest English paper started an advertising campaign against The Times of India, India's most read English paper.

Hindu's campaign, for those who know the paper, is surprisingly cheeky (as intended by the publication... and being privy to a little inside information, I can say that with certainty).

Times of India, with it's customary confidence and arrogance replied back today.

Newspaper wars begin in Chennai???

I know many people in Chennai who believe the Times of India will never replace The Hindu. But TOI is a formidable opponent nevertheless.

This is a battle that will be worth watching... will The Hindu buckle or with the Old Lady of Boribunder get more intellectual?

The importance of being India

I walked into office yesterday morning knowing fully well that we'd have to change the media schedule of a campaign due to India's brilliant performance in the WT20. Our campaign schedule was drawn up on the reasonable assumption that India would come second in its group, beating Afghanistan and losing to South Africa and thus, occupying position C2. However, India or rather the Indian cricket team decided to delight this cricket crazy nation by winning both matches.

How does this affect an advertising campaign you might ask? Well you see, the schedule for the inter-group matches had been drawn based on the above mentioned reasonable assumption. As a result the team C2 would play it's next three matches (the Super Eight round) in prime time according to IST. However, we thought India coming first in Group C meant that not only will the dates of its matches change but also a shift in the timing of the matches from prime time to later in the night (as per the schedule for team C1). Which in turn meant that we could run our campaign without cricket stealing viewer-ship from other programs in the prime time.

So the morning began, with a flurry of phone calls, to channels, to clients and Star cricket and many others. Changes in schedules, reallocation of spots and many other complicated maneuvers were being considered to ensure that our campaign didn't clash with the matches. Until... a representative from ESPN-Star Sports informed us that the match schedule  had been structure to not change  irrespective of whether India came first or second in Group C; that it would still occupy position C2. After all, how can India play in the anything but prime time when more than 80% of any cricketing event's revenue comes from the Indian sub continent?

Ah... the sigh of relief at the emancipation from a few hours of torturous number juggling and millions of phone calls. And yes, a shake of my head in wonderment at the importance of being India in the world of Cricket.

The triumvirate of advertising

I was sitting in a presentation yesterday when a thought that often strikes me made its appearance once again - that advertising agencies develop a point of view on the most profitable segment of the population and translate that consumer profile across business, products and brands.

Okay, now let me try and explain that in plainer English. In the nearly two years that I've worked in an ad agency, I've seen, in pitch after pitch, consumer profile after consumer profile, certain commonalities. And my take is that each agency, by virtue of the kind of place it is and the kind of people who work there, comes to evolve a certain kind of consumer they are comfortable talking to irrespective of the product category they are working on. The reason I think this happens is that there is a match between the value systems of the agency and of this "consumer profile". The work also tends to talk far more effectively to this audience and the clients we end up working with are also in the same space.

My point really is this: it isn't just about the brand and the consumer. The choice of consumer and brand is as much about the agency as well and creative work reflects the character of an agency and its people as much as the character of the brand.

PS: I really started thinking about this because of a tweet sent to me by Rehab! So well yes, here's my first post on advertising!