BlackBerry's new ad on Indian Televison

Indian television viewers are viewing the new Blackberry on Vodaphone prepaid, advertisement form the last one week.

Visually the ad goes like this:

Five guys in great business suits, ages ranging from 30 somethings to those in their 50s and 60s, are dancing in a horizontal line facing the viewers, and singing: “We wear suits, We wear shiny shoes” We are Blackberry Boys”

After they sing the same above thing for a couple of times. A guy in T-shirt and Bermudas, dancing in the same manner and singing the same line arrives and stands in front of the five guys. Soon many young people, doing the same, in their 20s and wearing casual clothes hide the original line up. These young people in all sorts of casual wear soon overwhelm the original lineup by their sheer number. Now all the people including the five guys are singing the same line and dancing in a similar manner. But notably all thru the ad, the five guys in suits and shiny shoes are still visible and still make for the second line among the hundreds of people.

What does the Blackberry on Vodaphone ad wants to convey and probable reasons:

1) India is different from the rest of the countries of the world. With Govt giving big emphasis on professional education in the past ten years; thousands of young professionals in a wide range of professions are created each year. Add to this the fact that most of these new entrants are looking within their country for careers. So the ad tries to convey that professional from any profession, can aspire for Blackberry. And as the entire Blackberry entourage is singing the same line and dancing in the same way; the ad want to convey the thought that irrespective of the profession, users believe in Blackberry (they love it). And the number of these people will keep on creasing(ad shows this)

2) Companies have seen a new found confidence in Gen Y of the country; that’s why the ad is straying away from its “great suits and shiny formal leather shoes” philosophy. But the ad doesn’t want a business executive to get an impression that he has been betrayed. Hence the five guys in suits are visible through out the ad and still hold the few front few rows.

3) Showing hundreds of people clogging the entire TV screen wants to convey to the country that no matter what people say: Blackbery is used by sizeable number of people in the country. In addition Vodaphone, wants to convey the prepaid nature of the service. As companies have found, prepaid is the way to go. But the ad doesn’t convey this aspect well. That’s why one sees people keep n arriving.

Will the ad pay ?

Companies sometimes find that their products and services are being used by those people, the company never thought will use. So if this is seen, as no matter who uses your service/product; if people are helping you get sales and explore you find new ways of using your product/service; then they should be encouraged. India is a country where this happens normally. Ad is good taking this aspect into consideration..

Another way to looking at the ad, is that in the past two years, people have really started to explore the options in mobile phones; they have no qualms buying a phone which has smartphone compatibilities. There are countless young people who are talking about accessing social networks on phones. Going by what their pocket allows people are increasingly opting for phones with smart phone features.

Last but not the least; India is a country which democratizes tech products. Treating and showing a product/service as exclusive will not work in most cases. People learn things fast; as they want to get the value of every penny they paid for it.

But there is one flip side to the ad though, Blackberry will lose its elite status. --------

BlackBerry's new ad on Indian Televison

Share This:

1 comment