Advertising Ke Naye Sitare...

Everyday when I am out and am on my way out of my doors, I come across this huge life size billboard, which has the stylish model Deepika Padukone. Deepika's slim waist and shapely legs, and of course bums all endorsing for Levi Strauss Signature brand. This ravisher and hottie has been selected as the face of all advertising and marketing campaigns of the Levi Strauss Signature brand, which is targeted at the youth, for the coming two years.

Also since I am a Levi's 'ka pujari' [not Deepika's, if that's the case, then its like building castles in air] was checking the web for a new pair of jeans. On the main page of the site, I just skim across this new Ad for Levi's 501 jeans.

A guy unfolds a box and picks up a new pair of jeans. As he opens the zip and then pulls the pants on, suddenly all laws of physics are in disarray. The neighborhood in which the house is located, looks as if attacked by a hurricane, or by a dinosaur going haywire and suddenly the dead street resurrects miraculously into the apartment. With his jeans half-worn, the man sees this charismatic stranger standing in a nearby phone booth. The phone booth's exterior is worn to shreds but the two exchange, a definitive look like Dilip Kumar, Vyjayantimala Bali in Ganga Jamuna for nain lad jai re to manva ma kasak hoi bekari. Then its arms in arms the two walk down the paseo coquettishly, with two butts on the screen.


This is just one part of the story, and then there is a gay version to this one too. The Ad is there in the website of Levi's. Wow another virgin area for the marketers to venture into. Cameron, the Levi's Jeans makers Vice President of marketing goes gung ho about this.

"I think what's surprising is how long it's taken us to get there," Cameron said. "Just to put (a commercial) on a gay-targeted channel like Logo that actually reflects the people who are watching it shouldn't be such a radical notion. It really shouldn't be."

The business for the global brands is not plumping and some of the older brands are clearly struggling to remake their marketing and product mix for a more complex world. The era of building brands namely through the conventional mass media advertising is over. The paramount strategy of the world's most successful brand builders these days is not so much about the old plan of ambit and numbers, frequency of viewing by consumers, but rather making rooms to get the existing and new consumers to invite brands into their lives. The mass media is indispensable and in the near future won't disappear as an instrument of marketing. But smart companies picture these scenarios as making bold statements in design, idea and tapping consumers by integrating messages with entertainment so that the two are indistinguishable.

So in the light of this, is this Levi's new blueprint, a way to capture a new segment and generate more sales. In recent days, there has been news of how tattered and frayed jeans from Sri Lanka are in high demand among shoppers in Europe and the United States.

Well that was videsh, but then in aapna desh also, Kal Ho Na Ho, SRK Lux Star Hai.

Superstar SRK had created a flutter, sometime back with his Lux advertisement, which has him in a rose petal bath surrounded by four heroines who have previously modeled for the soap. Some people thought it was a girlie Ad, and questions were conjured about his sexuality. The brand was highlighted as 'metrosexual'.

After that kya khichdi paakee, God knows but who was the winner in the end: both SRK and HLL. SRK would have got his share for endorsing fees and HLL's sales would have improved from its plummeting sales. Moreso it was not a long-term campaign and was aired for a short duration. Then Lux again got back to its former strategy of having the actresses in bathtubs.

There is a new trend now and the marketing chaps want to leverage this. When it comes to media, men say in the age group of 18 to 35, like things fresh are unpredictable, and uncensored. For this group anything formulaic and recapitulated is boring and draggy, aren't even tempting. So why not try new cards.

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