Brand advertising wars in the country are no longer the preserve of soft drink majors. The new direct-to-home (DTH) players, who have so far been competing on the telecom front, are now battling for mindshare with their smart ad campaigns.
For instance, Reliance ADAG’s Big TV and Bharti Airtel’s Digital TV have unleashed a new ad game of sorts. While Bharti Airtel ran advertisement teasers for its new DTH business for a week before officially launching the service today, arch rival Big TV, launched in August, unleashed its counter campaign this Monday.
While Airtel’s DTH campaign has animated creatures running around a chair chanting, “See you at home soon”, the Big TV ad uses the same set up and even the punchline with a few additions. Big TV’s campaign hence reads ‘See you at home with 32 cinema halls’, ‘See you at home with digital picture and sound’ and ‘See you at home with over 200 TV channels.’
It’s a close match and an expensive affair too. It’s estimated that the monthly ad spends by the five existing players are around Rs 30-40 crore, making it one of the costliest product category in recent times, similar to the well-documented battles of the two cola companies.
“However, it should be noted that the current market leaders in the DTH segment – Dish TV and Tata Sky – are not fighting among themselves and it’s only the new entrants that are locking horns,” an expert from the sector (who did not wish to be quoted) explained.
Earlier this year, PepsiCo’s move to create a ‘Youngistaan’ for its consumers marked the beginning of the spoof war between the cola majors.
The first of the ads saw actors Ranbir Kapoor, Deepika Padukone and Shah Rukh Khan enact a comic scenario around an extra-terrestrial being. In response, Coca-Cola spoofed with its Sprite ad sporting a punchline ‘Seedhi Baat, No Bakwaas’. The ad featured the look-alikes of the three characters seen in the Pepsi commercial.
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In response to the Thums Up ad featuring Akshay Kumar, PepsiCo created its own spoof taking the ad-war a step forward. This is not the first time that the two cola majors have locked horns. PepsiCo’s Mountain Dew and Coca-Cola’s Thumps Up have indulged in spoof wars right from 2003.
Taking a dig on ad wars in different product categories, brand specialist Harish Bijoor said, “Most of these campaigns are not backed by insights but are aimed at making potential consumers sit up and take notice. It may not translate into actual sales.”
However, Bijoor maintained that when one brand takes on a rival brand thorough advertising, it doesn’t do much for the individual brand but does wonders for the category in question.