Aircel the name appears to me an imitation of Airtel. And so does their launch TV commercial. The script is based around a cricket dressing room where MSD is talking with his team mates about going out on a short trip to a nearby location and as he talks he exhibits the qualities of the Aircel service such as booking online, payment online, music capabilities and Internet connectivity. Well nothing wrong with the script. Only that all his team mates are duplicates or to use a more appropriate word - imitations. Yuvi, Shreesanth, Harbhajan, Gauti ( thought so) duplicates are all at play in this commercial. While the script is ok (of course nothing unique or exceptional) and would have sailed through our lives but for the huge dose of imitation
which has simply wrecked it. I don't mean to undermine the actors. They have done their bit and done it fairly well. No problems over there. My view is on the thought of using duplicates for a brand that wants to stand tall before the likes of Airtel and Vodafone. Commercials by these brands (Airtel and Vodaphone) have inherently been path breaking whether it is the brand concept, the execution or whatsoever that goes into making one. When you are a follower in the market you need to start at where your competition is and from that point try and out beat it. But over here the the brand itself looks like an imitation and a bad one at that. By using duplicates brand kind of says that I am like the original but short of it by quite a distance. - My name sounds like them, my aspirations too is like them i.e to use brand endorsers like them but I can't go the whole distance. Somewhere I lose the steam and make do with look alikes. Basically I am not there.
The only route then left for such a brand is to be a price warrior and see loses from day one that would mount up with time and would cost a lot more than using original actors or at least another script.
Imagine using Dhoni and still messing it all up. They ( Aircel) could have learnt from the competition a bit or two if their budgets did not permit signing up with other cricketeers. The script had to be different. MSD could have been in the script with other actors having original characters and not playing look alikes for God sake. For example there is an Airtel Satellite Television commercial which uses Gauti and Zaks to great effect. In fact in this commercial the other actor comes out shining too. Otherwise they could have been inspired by other Airtel commercials which do not use stars. How Aircel peopel have managed to drown their money and brand is there for everyone to see practically everyday. Here is a perfect example of saving on production and driving up media exposure. The more they show the commercial on air the more they are damaging the brand. Wish they had not short changed the production even at the cost of compromising on media exposure. The consumer would have remembered the commercial and his memory would have driven up the OTS factor. This also brings to light what happens when a greedy advertiser who wants to do everything the other guy does but will not strive for perfection. Such clients often say that the idea is cardinal whatever be the execution. In advertising they say that money well spent is an investment that grows exponentially while money badly spend or even under spent is pure expenditure. Here I think Airtel has incurred high expenditure which will cost the brand dear.
Mr Sandeep Das who I admire a lot and who was involved in the Hutch (Pug) original piece has let this pass. How could he?