Radio Mirchi – Rudaali (Best)

Hovering somewhere near Best and Best Amid a Bad Lot, is a film for Radio Mirchi. Still about a minute longer than we’d have

preferred, but there’s much to like in this narrative about an aging ru-daali unable to corral together an effective second-in-line set of criers. Turns out, because they are tuned in to a radio station, they are “al-ways khush.” For once, the ad actually links back to the service being advertised and its tagline, a bit of a rarity in these films where “Cut” and “But where’s the product yaar?” seem to be things that few people dare say aloud.

OYO Rooms – #Azaadi4Me (Bekaar)

The OYO Rooms film could have sailed into BEkaar in this category on the

basis of its length alone. It runs a liberal 3 minutes 15 seconds over the 3 minute mark, the point at which all but the most brilliant ads are already testing our patience severe-ly. But what clinches it is the plot, a cynical exploitative narrative that serves up pa-triotism with a liberal side of xenophobia.

On a night out for a birthday treat, a cou-ple (played by Manoj Bajpai and Raveena Tandon) meet with an accident, hit by a man who calls them “Bloody Indians!” in an indecipherable accent. But that just gets us started on our trip down the rabbit hole of nonsense. We learn soon enough that strange Caucasian men — we are going to call them The Tom Christos after their parents Tom Alter and Aussie Bob Christo who played similar roles in innumerable blockbusters through the 80s — rule the roost, dogs and Indians are not allowed in restaurants, and our couple who went into such an establishment look-ing for some first aid are thrown out on their asses after being beaten to a pulp for good measure.

Cue the sanctimonious voiceover kicking in with “Shaayad kuch aisa hi hota agar aaj hamara desh azaad na hota.” Newsflash OYO Rooms! A lot of what’s shown in the ad still happens frequently enough to be wor-rying irrespective of whether the country is “azaad” or no.

People not wanting to get involved with accident victims — check. Establishments within India that are for all intents and purposes, White Only, — check; run a search for this online sometime or read a desi travel blog or two. People driving around like maniacs — check, and the last time we encountered one of these, a couple of hours ago in fact, he wasn’t some foreign-er with a strange accent saying “Bloody Indians.” He was one of us and what he said is not printable.

The BEst & BEkaar of 2015

bestbekaar

Here are the year’s best and worst ads over one minute long

The Cryology Series (BEwildered)

For the life of us we can’t remember which finan-cial institution ran which of these wannabe tear

jerkers. If we recall correctly, one of them was about the insecurities of a dwarven dad; the other about a father trying to get his tot a Titanium exoskeleton and the third, about a hapless papa singlehandedly trying to raise an autistic child.

Between the timing of these films which all rolled out in rapid succession, the similarity in subject matter, the fact that they all featured absentee

moms, the cinematic treatment and even client category, these ads left us bewildered. Several

agency folk and marketers going on a Thai diet simultaneously is about all the expla-

nation we can come up with.

Not Gone in 60 secs

Wh i l e l o o k i n g for a lens wide enough to en-compass at least some of what

happened in 2015, a year in which quite a lot happened, we finally settled on Best – Bekaar.

The ad review column features findings on the most loved and loathed ads of the week accord-ing to research conducted by IPSOS on a 200 member strong consumer panel. It remains one of our most eagerly followed and controversial segments. Strangely enough, even after a decade of ads being strictly picked by panel (other than the very occasional editor’s choice), we still have a few – the ad indus-try equivalent of the flat earth society — who believe the work is selected by us, week after week.

Well, that happens to be true of this issue at least. We picked the ads, trends and happenings, both positive and negative; be-sides getting industry experts to weigh in. We (and the experts) were frequently spoilt for choice.

This is after all a year when seemingly unassailable giants like Maggi f loundered and ad folk who looked all set to leave their agencies feet first, bailed on the industry. A year in which even the most reluctant market-er and agency head discovered digital was not the future but the present, usually about the time, when by omission or commis-sion, they received a drubbing in

the kangaroo courts of Twitter and Facebook.

A year when over 10 0,0 0 0 shares on a clickbait site began to matter more than a bronze tro-phy at one of the “lesser” award shows. A year in which advertis-ing became (frequently boring) content. A year in which content became (frequently irrelevant and ineffective) advertising.

A year in which every startup called itself a solution provider and a few agencies tried their hands at solution providing with mixed results.

Depending on who you are and what you were selling it was either the Best of times or the Bekaar of times. Here’s hoping the New Year brings you more of the former and less of the latter.

Team BE: Ravi Balakrishnan, Amit Bapna, Delshad Irani &

Shephali Bhatt

THIS IS AFTER ALL A YEAR WHEN SEEMINGLY UNASSAILABLE GIANTS LIKE MAGGI FLOUNDERED AND AD FOLK WHO LOOKED ALL SET TO LEAVE THEIR AGENCIES FEET FIRST, BAILED ON THE INDUSTRY

“Maurice Levy’s holiday greetings reminded me why I am in this industry.” Anil Nair CEO, L&K Saatchi & Saatchi

inside...BEst & BEkaar Marketing Trends of 2015?

BEst & BEkaar Ad moments of 2015

Best Or Bekaar? (The answer inside)

Strong Story & Humour Neeraj Kakkar, Hector Beverages

The ‘Online Sale’ Govind Shrikhande, Shoppers Stop

Discounted Apps Sachin Bhatia, Truly Madly

THE PLOT IS A CYNICAL EXPLOITATIVE NARRA-TIVE THAT SERVES UP PA-TRIOTISM WITH A LIBER-AL SIDE OF XENOPHOBIA

Like Best Bekaar? You’ll love this issue. While you can probably get the BEst of 2015 in many places, we also serve up the Bekaar. Team BE

GET

TYIM

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Glad the TV-data dark

period’s overMallikarjun DasCEO - India, Starcom MediaVest Group

BestThe best thing to have happened to media agency business this year was rural measurement for TV. It’s a two months old tool and we’re yet to start actively using it but at least there’s something to look at to understand the rural au-dience better, perhaps. After all, rural roughly represents 50% of our TV-viewing audience.

BekaarThe TV-data dark pe-

riod was rea l ly bekaar no matter what people said before and dur-ing that time. Glad it ’s over now.

bestbekaar

Ambuja Cement — ‘The Great Khali’ (Best)Every once in what, nowadays, seems like

an eon there comes an ad universally-loved, effective and truly creative in its handling of tried, tested and dulled ad strategies. For instance, the laziest trick in ad books: the celebrity endorsement.

But Ambuja Cement’s commercial featuring the world-famous wrestler, Dalip Singh Rana aka Khali gave conventional wisdom a much needed injection of creativity and deft treat-ment. In the 60-second long, mockumentary-style film (easily our favourite ad of 2015) a disheartened Great Khali can’t enjoy the joys of a home because under his weight and touch everything crumbles. That is until he builds a house made of Ambuja cement. While the story is the type of obvious which makes one say “why didn’t I think of that!”; it’s the little things that take this commercial from best to among the possibly all-time great. Smart and endearing touches like the little band aid on Khali’s big forehead or an unintentional, shy smile caught on camera. One that was off-limits to the editor’s axe. Above all, after a long time we have an ad, not a vanity project but a proper advertisement (one that meets the client’s objectives) which is thoroughly entertaining and made us smile even on our 11th watch.

Lifebuoy Help A Child Reach 5 - Chamki (Best)

An ad/campaign deserves the ‘Causevertising Of The Year’ award

only if it’s stood the test of time and not picked an issue just because it’s in ‘vogue’. Lifebuoy has been promoting the cause of #HelpAChildReach5 for three years now. The background: Majority of kids born in Indian villages die of diarrhoea and pneu-monia before they reach five. Reasons are largely related to the unhygienic environ-ment in which they live. Lifebuoy tries to solve this problem plus increase its sales while at it, by urging more people to wash their hands regularly.

In the last two years, they’ve told stories of different villages where a child crossing the five mark is celebrated. This time, they take us to an Indian village known to have one of the highest rates of diarrhoea in the country. They tell us a story of Sangrahi who’s carrying a child she wants to name Chamki. Team Lifebuoy makes a video where a seven-year-old Chamki pretends to be her daughter from the future and thanks her for taking extra care of her health - by making sure she regularly washes her hands.

While living in the cocoon of our app-led convenient lives, we forget how certain basic things that come naturally to us, are hard to enforce in the world outside our metro-wells. We are hoping its rustic audi-ence find the ad as affecting and beyond that, it results in actual behaviour change.

The Calling – Anouk(Bekaar)

Women’s issues are getting more play than ever in Indian advertising. We offer up

a hooray with a few reservations. Because be-yond a point, there does appear to be a certain degree of opportunism and glibness creep-ing into the whole process. Anouk, a fashion label from Myntra, taken up issues this year

that ranged from - single parenting to eve teas-ing to a les-bian couple. Perhaps its least effective is one about the fallout of pregnancy-led bias at the work-place starring Radhika Apte and Shernaz Patel.

Patel is the unsympathetic boss who gets schooled by Apte who quits in an abrupt and spectacular fashion, getting dropped off at her already half constructed new office, a twist in the tale that jjars given the relatively organic tenor of the rest of the film. We suspect the rush to be part of conversations and popular culture took a vital bit of soul away from a film that addresses an otherwise swept under the carpet issue head on.

Cadbury Bournvita — Tayyari Jeet Ki (Best)

In a year when DadiMaas were giving mothers a run for their

#SuperMomOfAdvertising award, choosing the most Maarvelous mommy-centric ad wasn’t easy. Since, mum and mush are largely inseparable, we wanted to pick one that was high on realism and had a strong brand connect as well. Ergo, Cadbury Bournvita’s Tayyari Jeet Ki— Part 3. After racer boy and boxer girl, Cadbury and its agency Ogilvy present a swimming champ who has fractured his leg. When his mother realises the boy is missing his championship glory, she decides to coach him for the next swimming competi-tion — on one leg, so they’re on an equal footing.

A combina-tion of leading by example and walking the talk (even on one foot), this ad reminds you of the time your mother fell off the bicycle while trying to teach you how to ride one. The time she re-vised her forgotten chemistry lessons while helping you with your numericals. The time she learnt a new dance form just because you were participating in your school’s annual function. It’d be interesting to see if Bournvita tops this next year and how.

Cello — Main Aur Maa(Bekaar)

We’ll keep it short, in order to strike a balance with this TV

commercial which is longer than the (in)famous(?) caaaaaaaaaaaaa...r. We get it, Cello: A daughter will bet-ter understand her mother when she becomes a mum herself. You don’t need a seven-minute advert to make your point (which was that Cello products like juicer-mixer-grinders are your ‘Companion for Life’ just

like your mother?). Please remember that viewers appreciate long-form content if it’s engaging, and not if it’s an unfunny portrayal of life in slow-motion. Also, you don’t always have to make the father look bad/ir-responsible to make the mother look better/greater. That said, we sense the ad creator’s heart is in the right place what with the genuine Johnson & Johnson-ad-esque expressions the characters portray; but the ad needs to go through the grind of massive editing. Permissible final cut: Less than 90 seconds. The consumer needs a reason to remember the brand behind a story - don’t let the overlong duration of the film be that reason next time.

Maggi — Late NightBewildered

This is one Maa we don’t get. Yes,

Maggi has got a clean chit from FSSAI and is

back in your nearest gro-cery store. We are just not

buying the fact that a mother is

rejoicing at her child

gorging on an-other item that’s, to be

honest, some-

where between an

indulgence and quick fix snack.

Even before the controversy, we know and know of enough mums who accepted their kids eating Maggi even if it

didn’t have their unreserved approv-

al. The way most folks are wired, they’d rather

their child eat a bursting with calories and ghee home cooked snack than something that comes out of a pack. Do mothers like the ones in this ad really exist? Or are they the food equivalent of the people who are always surprisingly upbeat and chipper about mundane chores like doing the laundry and cleaning the loo; who can typically only be found in advertising? You tell us, we are bewildered.

things that happened to the ad business

An Adfair To Remember or Not

From ‘dream merchants’ to

‘life changersAnil Nair CEO, L&K Saatchi

Best1) Social issues became part of the brand narrative and hence communication2) Maurice Levy’s holiday greetings: Maurice reminded me why I am in this in-dustry in the first place. To have fun and not take myself so seriously while helping businesses connect with consumers.3) HUL’s Haath Munh Bum — Swatch Aadat, Swatch Bharat: I believe in the un-

reasonable power of creativity to make sustainable impact in the society and change lives. Campaigns like these el-evates our industry’s status from ‘dream merchants’ to ‘life changers’.

Bekaar1) Long format ‘ emo-tional ‘ campaigns that tried to exploit sentiments in favour of brands ( 3 life insur-ance brands that came out at the same time with kids as protago-nist )2) Zomato ads on porn sites: No matter how relevant the TG it may

have and how cost effective it is, you have to draw a line on where you place your brand message. By resorting to such mar-keting steps Zomato has left a very bad taste in many a mouth.

Transform the business

Nishad Ramachandran SVP - digital experience, Hansa Cequity

BestIn 2015 we are seeing dis-ruptive change, where traditional businesses start to transform them-selves into truly digital entities. These multi-mil-lion dollar, multi-year digital infrastructure projects put customers at the heart of companies. Where CMOs are

working with technologists and customer experience special-ists to build the future.

Bekaar T reati ng dig it a l wit h t radit iona l campaign mental-ity. Long for mat TVCs now play out on YouTube. Digital campaigns appear online and disap-pear. Wave after wave of trends are

created by brands in social me-dia. Some die out in hours, oth-ers in days and some linger on.

Believers out-numbering non-believersAmit Akali, co-founder, What’s Your Problem (WYP)

BestSince 2015 was WYP’s (an indepen-dent agency) first year, we’re yet looking at the industry through rose tinted glasses; with a lot of positivity. So, in my head, a lot more good things have happened this year, than bad. To start with this year saw the second wave of independent agencies being launched, far more people started an agency this year than ever be-fore. The good thing was that most

of them took effort to portray them-selves as being beyond a tradi-tional mainline agency. Most of them had prob-lem solving in their manifesto. (Some of us, in our name itself!).

Most of them said they were digital, mobile or social agen-cies. And most of them were started by people who’d otherwise spent their years in main-line advertising. These, mainline people, includ-ing me, are obviously using our understanding of strategy and cre-

ativ-ity but mar-

rying that with an un-derstanding of medias beyond film and print – digital and mobile me-diums. The best thing is this is ex-

actly what the client was looking for this year. Like the Pepsi mar-keting head said – there’s nothing like digital marketing, there’s marketing and 90% of it happens to be digital. And while there are enough non-believers, the believers are slowly outnumber-ing them, more clients are thinking beyond traditional media. The fact is that cli-ents are spending – they are just spend-

ing on more and newer mediums. Which means more and more mainline advertising people are joining non-traditional media agencies; creative people like Pops and Chax both now head creative

at digital agencies… and that’s only at the top level… countless people across levels, across disci-plines (servicing/strategy) have joined digital or non-traditional

agencies this year.

Bekaar This now leads us to the worst thing that’s happened to the indus-try. More and people in the industry are finding opportunities outside it. The talent is leaving the indus-try, whether it be to direct films, join tech-nology companies, get

on to the client side, start their own product or simply just take a break.

From ad-blockers and pure content creators to an ever-increasing number of people who are ad-intolerant, advertising, at least in the conventional sense, has many enemies. But 2015 had its own unique blend of opportunities and threats that the mad ad world must face. Here’s a reminder from some adlanders,

across a range of expertise, who give us their picks of the best and bekaar things that happened to the advertising business this year

YOU HAVE TO DRAW A LINE ON WHERE YOU PLACE YOUR BRAND MESSAGE

THERE’S MARKETING AND 90% OF IT HAPPENS TO BE DIGI-TAL, SAYS PEPSI’S MARKETING HEAD

You won’t believe what

happened next!

bestbekaar

bestbekaar

Presenting this year’s best, worst and min-boggling Maa-centric adverts

Mere Paas Maa Hai

Starway to Heaven or Hell?Here are our picks of the best and bekaar ads featuring celebrity brand endorsers

bestbekaar

Causeway Of Hit AndMiss...Here’s what we thought were the best and worst cause-marketing campaigns of 2015

Tata Motors — #madeofgreat(Bekaar)

It seems somebody reached their character-limit before completing

the hashtag. And that’s our first bone to pick with this adrocity. We’re not delusional, we know it’s the era of 140 characters and all that, because the human brain has evolved and no longer possesses the ability to process and retain more than a short string of words. But, seriously, why #madeofgreat and not #madeofgreatness?

However, this clinches our vote for the worst ad featuring a celebrity. The mak-ers, with their ham-fisted treatment of the creative and copy and laborious brand connect, have managed to make a football player who, even on a bad day, is exciting to watch, look and feel as dull as a door-knob. Lionel Messi a doorknob! What can possibly be worse? A lot apparently. The visual treatment and special effects make the whole film seem like a trashed level of FIFA 2013. A derivative, yawn-inducing and sorry rendition of the rags, turmoil and hard-work to glory and riches story that sport theme ads and films are usually made of.

AN AD THAT’S NOT A VANITY PROJECT BUT A PROPER ADVERTISEMENT

HOW TO WASTE COPIOUS SUMS AND SPEND NONE ON ‘THINKING’ AT ALL

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bestbekaar trends in marketing

A Year of Appocalypse And Content-mentMarketers across categories tell us what left them impressed this year and what didn’t

Manan Mehta, Vice President, Marketing, Yash Raj Films

BestThe upsurge in content market-ing that is being embraced by marketers — eg TrulyMadly’s Creep Qawwali — AIB and Kingfisher inte-gration with TVF Pitchers. This year also saw many content specialists being part of core marketing func-tions in sunrise industries like ecommerce.

BekaarOver-dependence on influencers and social media, often at the cost of dilut-ing the marketing objective. The oth-er big one is user generated content continuing to be the lazy market-er’s and mediocre agency’s favourite go-to idea

Sudarshan GangradeVice President, Marketing, Ola Cabs

BestThe rise and rise of inde-pendent content creators, who are going digital first.

BekaarContinuing fuzziness in media planning between offline and online, in spite of improved planning and tracking tools from digital platforms.

Vivek Prabhakar CEO, Chumbak

Best The increasing acceptabil-ity of great content. We saw brands across the board try out so much this year — right from Instagram to Pinterest to Snapchat — things have been spec-tacular. This year felt like a groundswell of kinds for content in the country and we are super excited around the possibilities for it.

Bekaar It became tough to reach your audience on Social organically. As a brand we had to pay more to reach our own followers.

Neeraj KakkarCEO, Hector Beverages

BestStrong story, so-cial message and humour as a trend is what nailed it, and simply set the tone for the year. The content creation on films like Truly Madly, Mauka-Mauka and The Great Khalli stood out and is here to stay.

BekaarThe one trend for the year that prob-ably could need some improve-ment is the over-use of hashtag in everyday com-munication of the brands. While it is an important way to reach consumers, but making it more contextual, would help the efficiency of this tool im-prove.

Sachin BhatiaCEO & co-founder, TrulyMadly

BestFrom a consumer’s perspective it’s been the year of apps, especially with some businesses going app only. The best bit is that a lot of Indian apps have invested a lot in UX (User Experience) thereby making app usage a very intuitive process. That’s helped with quick adoption of apps as well.

BekaarThe bekaar bit is some apps simply ported a ‘Web interface’ to apps thus providing a sub op-timal experience. Jabong does a terrible job of its app, so does PayTM. The other bekaar bit was on the obscene discounts to invite app transactions — great from a consumer perspective but the even-tual death knell for a few businesses. The most bekaar bit, however, was incentivising app-install services. And the same apps ultimately saw a 95% plus uninstall rate the same day they were installed.

Govind Shrikhande, Managing Director, Shoppers Stop

BestAcceptance of Omni as a strat-egy by all brick & mortar retail-ers. Globally experience has proved that as consumers start living life digi-tally - seamless shopping holds the key to their hearts and wal-lets.

Bekaar The obsession in retail with ‘Sales’ and the lack of focus on new launches and experiences.This trend is being fuelled by the online play-ers and their backers for some quick valuation build up and the brick and mortar players are fol-lowing it blindly.

Satyaki GhoshDirector - Consumer Product Division, L’Oréal India

BestPremiumisation and sachetisation have both worked – the consumer is more con-fident of buying aspi-rational brands, albeit in sachets. Consumer has also started wel-coming functional advertising. In a con-sumer survey, a young boy said he buys my product not because the celeb in the ad says so, but because of the scientific explanation that follows the ambas-sador’s endorsement.

Bekaar ‘Death by Jacket Ads’ tops my list. There was a time when jacket ads were considered an in-novation, but this year the overdose of jackets was terrifying. This year we didn’t have a big property for brands to ride on. IPL and ISL were ‘hashtag fail’.The ongoing properties seem to have fizzled out this year.

Comcast – ‘Emily’s Oz’Best

This was a lot harder than it should have been! We had to rack our brains

to pick a couple of great global ads in a year when the epic fails outnumbered the epic split and its ilk by a wide majority. We finally remembered this one, among the few ads this year that got props from the notoriously cantankerous George Parker who writes the hilarious abrasive and absolutely NSFW Adscam blog. In just about a minute, ‘Emily’s Oz’ reimag-ines parts of the Hollywood classic The Wizard of Oz as perceived by a blind little girl. The cowardly lion is a tiny furry creature “like a toy poodle”. The tin man has a big toe the size of a house. The scarecrow has tubes stuck to his body. Beautifully rendered in a production by Goodby Silverstein &

Partners for Comcast’s Xfinity which of-fers talking guides for visually impaired movie watchers. Chances are once you seethis, you will want to go through the mak-ing of and even sample a version of the ad with a talking guide. Heart-warming and moving without being exploitative, this is our pick of the lot for 2015.

Disney Parks – ‘Disney Side’

Aterrific little activation, built around not some holographic

technological marvel but actual people kitted out in Disney char-acter outfits, interacting with visitors to an NY based mall.

Our favourite moments are when a shopper is offered an apple by the

witch from Snow White and a kid gets into a dance off with Mickey himself.

A Controversial Year From Aamir Khan’s statements that led to a national uprising and Snapdeal getting caught in the crossfire to Facebook Free Basics and the war for net neutrality to Maggi’s fall from grace and following re-demption. 2015 was an interesting year for brands that finally realized that we truly live in a connected world. One where the tiniest ripple can have disastrous effects.

Ecommerce Sandwich Every time an online sale comes around, it brings with it hordes of gloating shoppers. People who put their lives and daily chores on hold to hit that but-ton and bag a catch and bragging rights at 75% Off. But sale season also brings another beast. The ‘Sale’ ad. However, the most intriguing aspect of the ad glut in a fairly short span of time, is the appearance of ecommerce companies’ Great Big Indian Sale Day ads in dailies and on TV in quick succession. The mass of indistinguishable ads is an ecomm Super Sub. That’s become an annual phenomenon.

Who let the dogs out? We know adorable toddlers and pooches are always a hit with viewers. A financial institution liberally used portraits of ba-bies pulling angry-faces in its campaign directed at parents who might find their progeny’s stankface cute now but not at 18.

“Buy Childsurance” Remember consumer-ism is built on a bedrock of fear. The follow-ing might be a very politically incorrect thing to say but dogs rank higher on our cute-ness meter. Yet we find it hard to “aw-www” at the sight of man’s four-legged best friends talking and driving around town in CarTrade.com ads for some years now. And then there was Lenskart which courted a bit of controversy over its ad featuring a beautiful young woman with Rapunzel-like hair who transforms into a dog with silky long tresses. Don’t leave all the hardwork to the babies and cute mutts, dear agency.

The Bekaar-est of them all Not too long ago our collective intelli-gence was attacked by a series of ads for the fashion brand Shaze. It was part of its ‘Labellion’, a fight against labels

and “people who label”. In one video the brand took on the fight for everyone and everything from women, men and butts to beefeaters and porn-watchers. As if the cacophony of causes wasn’t bad enough, there’s was the small matter of a premium lifestyle brand against labels. A little counterintuitive don’t you think? And the final straw was a billboard with two identical pictures of a dapper male model, one label read “If I’m Gay” and the other “You’re Homophobic”. Seriously Shaze? Is homophobia the only conceivable re-sponse to wondering if someone is gay? How about ‘interested’? Or were the cre-ators of the ad too homophobic to consider that an option?

BekaarHere’s what we wish we will see little

or none of in 2016. It’s highly un-likely, but in the spirit of the end of the year being a time for slightly unrealistic resolutions and hopes for a better future, here we go:A) Social service ads that lack any art and subtlety and go about reciting a litany of ills with all the grace and finesse of the part in an auto ad where they begin to read out chunks of the brief. B) Activations where technology becomes an end in itself: A Grand Prix winner at Cannes this year bored us to tears with its at-tempt at sonically recreating the Berlin Wall at Soundcloud. It made us long for a simpler time

when the worst thing on Soundcloud was your mid-life crisis afflicted friend chan-nelling Bob Dylan poorly, and trawling for ‘Likes’ on Facebook. C) Engagement based ads that stretch the limits of credibility. We are sure we are not the only ones asking this question when we see the inevitable brand activity AV: Who are these thousands or more fre-

quently hundreds of thousands of people who ‘engaged’ with the brand? What sort of lives

must they lead that they put them on hold to participate in often tedious or

horribly specific and specialised brand related activities? We shudder to peer behind the curtain to — shoehorn in an-other Wizard of Oz reference — for fear of finding a charlatan.

bestbekaar

bestbekaar

We’re Not in Kansas Any More, Toto There were precious few ads we found impressive this year from around the world. There was so muchof what we disliked, it warrants its own list

The Best of Bewildered and Bekaar in 2015

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brands on social media

2015 has been a busy buzzy year on social media as more and more people have been active-ly social. Not surprisingly, more and more brands have

increased their focus on social media seeking to score an “Oreo Superbowl” moment or two for themselves.

Many brands now run 24x7 social media command centres focused on identifying opportunities to jump into the social stream to spread their salience and engage with audiences. Several take the relatively easy route of paying to promote their tweets (and updates on other social channels) or to seed ‘trending’ topics and content, of-ten tapping ‘influencers’ to help them along.

But my list is not about them. It is about social media activity that struck a chord with me. Positively, or not.

THE HITS1. #ChennaiFloods related social media activity

This was not about a cute tweet or a piece of cool content. It was a campaign that started innocuously through a mere hashtag. And got picked up in the stream. Soumya Rao, someone based in Delhi took it further, working tirelessly along with volunteers who jumped on along the way. As news of this effort spread, it attract-ed more people, who helped spread the word and contributed in terms of both effort and money. What started as a set of tweets turned into a movement that spread from social media to television to support on-ground. Not your conven-tional campaign backed by a big brand with big budgets, but still something that created an impact. A tweet at a time, through mostly nameless people. Who came together to demonstrate what was easily one of the best social media initiatives in India in 2015.

2. Zomato and its contribution to Chennai relief effortsWhile several brands and businesses came forward to contribute to relief efforts during the Chennai f loods, Zomato stood out for me in how it used social media to co-opt people from far and wide into its efforts. It created a

simple way for people to pay for meals from a set of restaurants that would be delivered to those affected by the floods. And Zomato apart from deliv-ering the meals would contribute a matching number of meals. Within hours, the meal donation drive topped 110,000 meals. What cer-tainly helped was that Zomato’s CEO Deepinder Goyal is social media savvy himself, and personally drove the cam-paign rather than leaving it to the cor-porate Zomato handle.

3. The fight for #NetNeutrality This again was not a campaign led by a brand with big budgets. In fact, it was against big brands that were seeking to control and charge for access to the in-ternet in ways that would benefit their business interests.

It was a campaign led by an individu-al, Nikhil Pahwa which soon gathered waves of support that spread through social media growing further. The re-lated #SavetheInternet campaign saw over 1 million email signatories join-ing in, an unprecedented outflowing for support that even made headlines globally. A great example of what can be achieved when a campaign turns into a movement that is powered by people.

4. Response to the #ParisAttacksYet again, here is a campaign that grabbed my attention but had nothing to do with a brand. This one was fu-elled by the intrinsic goodness of peo-

ple and their wanting to help. Social media helped bring this to life through a single hashtag #PorteOuverte that became the connector between those in need and those willing to help.

5. The Ahmed Mohamed moment

The story of a school kid who made a clock and took it to school, only to be allegedly racially profiled and arrest-ed for being a potential terror threat. The story that would have died a natu-ral death came alive and completely changed the narrative when Barack Obama tweeted to the kid.

Since social media is also about being opportunistic, it was not entirely sur-prising to see brands jump in. Twitter offered the boy an internship.

Facebook’s Mark Zuckerberg offered to meet the boy. What is also interest-ing is that the posts by Obama and Zuckerberg got far more traction than

the tweet by Twitter. Clearly, real peo-ple fuel social media more than faceless brands can.

6. Arnab Goswami and the most talked about hour on Indian televisionArnab Goswami does not have a Twitter presence of his own. Yet he and his News Hour show are amongst the top Twitter trends virtually every weeknight. Bouquets and brickbats come together as people vociferously discuss what’s happening on the show, as well as its anchor. Going to demonstrate the power of content and consistency in its deliv-ery that helps it spread even across channels, in this case from television to social media.

THE MISSES1. Lenskart Hours after the Nepal Earthquake, Lenskart sent a text to thousands, rid-ing the quake to push a promotional message. Not surprisingly, the brand got pilloried on social media as calls to #BoycottLenskart went viral. The brand finally realised that its cam-paign was insensitive and apologised.

2. BBC India When Sania Mirza and Martina Hingis won the Wimbledon doubles, BBC India put out this tweet:

It led to outrage on social media in India for not mentioning Sania Mirza, more so since doubles are played by two persons. There were even accusa-tions of racism levelled against BBC. Finally good sense prevailed and BBC reposted the news apologizing for its earlier tweet.

3. British Airways

A tweet by Sachin Tendulkar about how British Airways lost his baggage met with a stereotypical response from the

airline requesting more details. This was enough for social media to fly into a rage as it slammed BA for not recognis-ing one of the sport’s most recognised stars. This incident even earned BA an infamous place in Amul’s advertis-ing annals. The nature and slowness of BA’s response added to the negative buzz around it, serving as a lesson to brands on how not to respond to celebrity cus-tomers on social media.

4. PTIA bland matter-of-fact tweet by PTI to announce the death of the former President of India drew ridicule and outrage on social media. Sadly, PTI did not do anything to rectify this and so re-mained the butt of Twitter’s ire for its insensitive tweet.

5. Press Information BureauA photoshopped image of Prime Minister Narendra Modi doing an aer-ial tour of flood-affected Chennai went viral as people criticised the govern-ment-run handle for distorting facts. Soon numerous photoshopped memes sprung up. The ridicule for the PIB in-creased in response to its explanation of the photoshopping incident. A good example of how not to do social media.

I wonder what delights and rude sur-prises social media and brands will serve up for us in 2016.

The author is a digital & mar-keting advisor, who helps brands successfully navigate the maze of

digital and social media. Views expressed are personal.

bestbekaar

Show Me the Likes! Ashok Lalla gives us his social media hits and colossal misses of 2015

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