What’s your favorite corporate theme video?

It is always interesting to watch Corporate theme videos. These are special videos produced with utmost care to represent the company as a whole in front of its stake holders (customers, investors, employees etc) . The difference between these videos and a typical regular commercial is that corporate videos do not focus on a specific product/service of the company and won’t have a direct sales pitch (like-there’s a great discount on this product, buy it now). Instead the video focuses on highlighting the values the company stands for, its heritage, uniqueness etc and aims to generate an overall positive impression among the viewers about the company.

Most of the commercials companies release while launching their IPO falls into this category. Other companies who have produced theme videos may not aggressively advertise it in public media but will use it in front of select audience (say clients).

My most favorite theme video is of Manipal University, followed by that of TCS (Experience Certainty)

Watch these videos below.
Manipal University

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d_H48MwW5pg
TCS

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xFKivhniFGk

I also liked Reliance Power’s Powen ON, India ON theme video very much.
Reliance Power


Compared to a regular commercial, theme videos are challenging to create. To be able to convey a strong positive message about the company in an indirect way, using a visually appealing video and audio, without using any cheap tricks that could be used in an ordinary commercial (animations, false representations, excessive text, celebrity endorsements etc) is a bit tough. A TV commercial can be easily recalled or replaced, but a corporate theme video cannot be changed overnight, unless there’s a strong reason.

Are there any theme videos you like a lot? Does your company has a theme video (available in public domain)? Share it with us.

Guidelines for Writing posts at Ad Critics Blog

Selecting the ad for review:

• You can select any ad in print, TV or internet media, but kindly adhere with following:
  
• Avoid local ads which no one is aware of.
  
• If possible include a video/image related to the ad.
  

Guidelines for Selecting Labels:
Labels are supposed to help readers sort among the posts and categorize them easily. So we need to categorize our posts into a set of broad categories making it easier for readers to sort.

I propose following labeling strategy: AuthorName, Industry to which the ad being reviewed falls under, your verdict on the ad

Author name: A nickname/ full name of each contributor
Industry: Select Sports, Telecom, Travel & leisure, FMCG, Banking & Finance, IT etc. Avoid specific terms like IPL, ICL because we may not be doing too may reviews of cricket ads and these labels may not repeat much and may become redundant
Verdict: One word to indicate your opinion about this ad: Misleading, Highly creative, beautiful, irrelevant, below average etc

Generic labels: Admin- For announcements
General-For posts which are generic and not specific to any particular commercial

Guidelines for linking:
Feel free to link to any relevant blog post/website related to the topic you’re covering. But all outgoing links to commercial websites should carry rel=”external nofollow” tag, so as not to give an impression to search engines that we’re writing paid reviews.

Use targe=”_blank” to open the link in new page (so that readers will be retained in current article and not abruptly sent away)

Add permalink of the post in the URL field below the title.

Other guidelines:
1 Give due credit to the source of your information
2 No copy paste please
3 Give considerations for both positive and negative aspects of the ad

Any other thoughts/tips? Feel free to share.

IPL Indian cricket league, Cricket ka Karmyudh??

There are unusual developments going on in the world of cricket including the formation of leagues. ICL and IPL being the prominent ones. Businessmen are making use of these leagues to mint money in the cricket fanatic nations primarily, India.

I'm not against cricket but somewhere I feel its gaining more prominence than it should.
People take things too personal. They perform yajnas before the match and if we lose one, things go in a wide spectrum, from literally weeping to burning effigies of cricketers for poor performances.

This post is criticizing the ad which is linked here.

People who are interested only in minting money on cricket have found a new way after booking. Invest your money in such leagues and get the most of it later. This ad is one of the foolish ad i've ever seen. They depict matches like war. They say its not a war between nations, its not for religion but its a war of duty. (Na Desiyudh, Nahi dharmayudh, yeh hai dharthi par karmayudh) What crap??

People respond to this in even more stupid way. This is supposed to promote the IPL cricket league but I find nothing in the ads regarding IPL.

Do you think that this is a good ad? Your valuable comments are awaited.

What is one thing behind that a marketer can hide whole universe?

What is one thing behind that a marketer can hide whole universe?

Guess!!!

Accommodation	No*
Travel Cost	No
Daily Breakfast/Dinner	No
Visa processing help	No
Tour	No

*mentioned charges are just exchange fee, you need to deposit your actual week (forfeit your local one week accommodation) in order to avail abroad holiday.

!!! We are providing you peanut shell you have to bring your own nut. !!!


Answer hint : rats a <- read from this side

Related posts: Caution about Club Mahindra Membership | BUY/SELL Club Mahindra Membership | CM ads show different offers for different cities

Tata Indicom Plug 2 Surf-Time to replace this ad

You’ve seen the Tata Indicom Plug2 Surf TV commercial-A model/actress hopeful girl gets a call from her agent who says “I’ve talked with Karan, send your photo immediately ”… This girl has a laptop but helpless as she has no internet connection. Kajol, sitting in next table, offers a USB Modem and asks the girl to send photo using it.

Nothing wrong in the ad as such (Though it doesn’t mention that Plug2Surf is not exactly plug n play- you need to install driver software through a CD and reboot the  system before you can start using it)

Coming to my actual point, I feel it is right time to replace this ad with something else. Ask me why…

When I see this ad time and again, I get the following feeling: “Something is wrong somewhere- since past few years she hasn’t got a break. Every time the agent calls and asks her to send photo, every time Kajol will be in next table to help her with USB Modem, every time she’s sending the photo, but she hasn’t got a break yet- May be the agent is not forwarding her photo to Karan, or there’s something seriously wrong with her laptop or internet connection-every time it shows a flash animation “Photo Sent” but I think the photo is never reaching the agent (else she should have changed the agent by now or find herself some other job, instead of relying on an agent who doesn’t even carry a photo of his clients to show it to directors”

Since years the girl hasn’t cared to buy a Tata Indicom connection of her own and is depending on Kajol to supply her with a USB model every time. I guess she hasn’t taken one because the free one Kajal gave couldn’t actually send a photo to her agent so she doesn’t really trust that device.

Just my thoughts.

Giving Re-birth to Ad Critics Blog

I am trying to give a re birth to this blog, now hosted on a all new custom domain, enidhi.com. For several months this blog was quite dormant, now with new domain name, I’ve got some motivation to start it again. The concept provides huge potential but I alone can’t afford to review thousands of ads and am looking for likeminded people who may wish to contribute.

The idea behind Ad Critics blog was this:

We do a lot of movie reviews and critics. Why not for advertisements?

Some ads are extremely creative and needs appreciation,
Some ads spread false message to the society,
Some ads do not speak truth and do not mean what they say,
Some ads have no logic and sense in them, and fail in their objective
Some ads are just a fun to watch/see
Some are misleading and have bad intentions/hidden agenda...

In this blog we'll take-up one ad each time and analyze them w.r.t. above parameters. Let others pool in their thoughts and we can spread the message/create awareness.

Advertisements are indispensable part of television or newspaper. newspapers and channels survive because of ads. It’s a billion dollar industry and any advertisement generally involves lot of marketing strategies, creativeness and obviously money. Analyzing them is a very interesting activities.

Looking for contributors

I myself can write one post per week. I am looking for contributors who can review at least one ad every month. If you like the above idea and wish to join hands with me, please let me know. I'll send an invite for you to join the blog and you too can post writings analyzing any ad you feel like.