Strategic Battle : Bajaj v/s Hero Honda

Bajaj has captured the market in India at a very high pace competing international players like Honda, Yamaha, Suzuki etc. The company has made a good reputation in the minds of customers. Bajaj was king in Scooters Manufacturing till 1990 but the entrance of new bikes and cars hit the scooter industry badly, and there was sudden downfall in the sales of scooters. As scooters were giving almost the same mileage which cars were giving but the bikes were giving the mileage more than the double. Moreover scooters were used by the retailers to carry goods from wholesalers to their shops, now this work started done on bikes and by cars too.

 

Bajaj started its business somewhere in 1960s with the launch of Vespa-150 under the license of Piaggio of Italy. After that it launched Bajaj Chetak and it became the leader with this launch. Bajaj got tremendous success in a very short duration. Later on in the year 1985 Hero Honda entered India with the launch of its CD-100 causing threat to Bajaj. Here Bajaj was going to hit badly, but Bajaj analyzed the situation very well and did a joint venture with Kawasaki Japan to compete with Hero Honda. The first bike which Bajaj launched was KD-100 in the year 1986. Though it was not successful and was not able to compete with CD-100 but this started the ADVERTISEMENT BATTLE among them. Here Bajaj was stickled to its scooters of which it was king and Hero Honda was focusing on its bike, and were giving ads of the same.

 

In 1994 Hero Honda launched its new bike, Splender. The launch of Splender hit the Scooter’s Sale badly. The bike was an excellent example of Mileage and Handling. Here it was very difficult for Bajaj to stay in the market for long as some other big giants like Yamaha and Suzuki were also trying to capture the Market. But kept on searching for new Ideas and innovating its vehicles and somehow managed to hold a big stake in the market and maintain its faith. To fight with the growing demand of Splender, Bajaj launched Caliber in the year 1998, and that was a big hit from the court of Bajaj. This gave birth to the Strategic Battles between the 2 companies

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Bajaj kept on innovating the design and hunting for advanced technology and remained successful in searching the solutions for good mileage and pickups. It took a while for Bajaj to establish faith and trust in the minds of customers for its bikes. Earlier Bajaj was following the same concept for advertising which the Hero Honda is yet following. Look at the above ads of Bajaj. The ad are showing the love of people for Bajaj Scooters. It is showing that the Bajaj is making relations strong and as it is an Indian vehicle, it can change the face of the nation. “Naye Bharat kii nayi tasvir, HAMARA BAJAJ”

 

READ MY PREVIOUS POST TO WATCH THE ADS OF HERO HONDA

As I mentioned in my PREVIOUS POST, here you can observe that this concept was earlier opted by Bajaj and now followed by Hero Honda. I am here, talking about the concept of focusing on Indian Traditions and Culture, showing Families, focusing on relations and passion to do something for the nation. These all things were done by Bajaj in previous years. And these tactics proved to be the nerve of the Nation. Look at the above ads, the thing will be very clear. The ads are showing the roads, the handling of scooters on these ‘kaccha’ roads, then family and children and their relationships. This all made Bajaj to develop faith in the hearts of the customers and arouse emotions in their heart towards Bajaj.

 

Now, instead of following the same pattern Bajaj has changed its way way of Advertising its products. Instead of touching the heart and nerves of the audience Bajaj is trying to bring innovation in its ads by showing some epic or some idea behind its ads. It is true that Bajaj has spent millions on researching the newer technologies and variants in designs. Apart from that it is also true that Bajaj has spent quality time and money with its Advertisement Partner MICA to bring innovations in its Ads. Watch these videos of Bajaj Pulsar Ads, here you will find many innovative ads in this video.

Watch the innovation in this Ad that shows 3 DTSI models of Bajaj.

 

Here one thing more is very clear that whatever the bike Bajaj has launched, it has a purpose to compete another bike of Hero Honda.

Bajaj launched KD 100(1986) to compete with CD 100(1985), Caliber(1998) to compete with Splender(1994), Legend(1998) to compete with Street(1997), Pulsar(2001) to compete with CBZ(1999), Discover(2004) to compete with Passion(2001), Wind(2003) to compete with Ambition(2002), Caliber115(2003) to compete with Splender Plus(2003), CT-100(2004) to compete with CD Dawn(2003), Pulsar 220(2007) to compete with Karizma(2003) and now NINJA(2010) to compete with Karizma ZMR(2009). During this period various other models were also introduced by both the companies and some were mere modification. But it was not significant to mention all the models.

So this was the Strategic journey of Bajaj in its Battle against Hero Honda. Keep visit Advertisement Battles to read more such Battles.

Pattern of Ads followed by Desh kii Dhadkan

Most of us are passionate about bikes esp. boys and even some of the girls even. This is the sector where Ads of Bikes are also watched with passion, where the heart beats of people are also attached with the Ads. And most of us might have got that of which company’s Ad I am talking about. Yes…. It is Desh Kii Dhadkan … HERO HONDA … Dhak Dhak Go.

Hero Honda has a strategy of following a similar pattern of its Ads. There are some things which you might have not noticed but today I would like you to see that pattern from my eyes.

Ok, now watch some of the Good Ads of Hero Honda

1. 3. 4. 6. 9.

 

2. 4. 8. 10.

 

2. 4. 8. 10.

 

3. 4. 6. 9.

 

1. 2. 3. 4. 5. 8. 10.

 

1. 2. 3. 4. 5. 8. 10.

 

1. 2. 3. 4. 5. 6. 9. 10.

 

1. 2. 3. 4. 5. 7. 10.

 

1. 2. 3. 7. 10.

 

LAST THE PERFECT ONE… (FULL LENGTH AD)

1. 2. 3. 4. 5. 6. 7. 8. 9. 10.

The advertisements here are following the following pattern:

1. The advertisement has a song or classical music

2. The song is sung in a chorographical way with men on bikes i.e. riding bikes according to music.

3. The Ads are showing the emotions and feelings for the bike

4. The Ad shows the trust and confidence of people on Hero Honda

5. Its taglines Dhak Dhak Go (or) Dhesh kii Dhadkan tries to attach heart beats along with emotions of people.

6. Most of Ads are showing Hero Honda as a family brand instead of focusing on any particular bike brand and symbolizing that all the Hero Honda guys have different zeal and enthusiasm.

7. The ads shows that Hero Honda makes Relations Strong by showing happy faces of friends or family members in its ads.

8. Special focus on its Riding, Handling in traffic and in Jams

9. Trying to correlate with sports or sportsmen and shows passion to do something for the country.

10. Shows its Style, Design and Looks.

In Hero Honda’s more than 60% of the ads you will at least 60% of these characteristics. I have done a brief analysis and have marked the numbers of these points under each of the ads shown here. And readers are free to to comment on what they feel about these pattern points.

VW Phaeton: Handcrafted Luxury

Volkswagen is known for its innovative Ad Campaigns. The innovation can be easily seen in Newspaper Ads, TV Ads, Banners and Internet etc. When VW launched its Phaeton it tried to establish it as a vehicle of Emperors of traditional times. That’s why the Ad says “Dear Emperor, Your car is finally here.”

The Ad is focusing on the Taj Mahal that is made by hands by the greatest craftsmen and then it compares the luxury of the car with the same and named it as ‘Handcrafted Luxury’. Later the company introduced the Chariots to show the Handcrafted luxury.

 

Forest Preview

 

Battlefield Preview

 

Wedding Preview

The name Phaeton is derived from Phaeton, the son of Phoebus in Greek Mythology and the Phaeton Auto Body Style matches with the type of Horse Drawn Carriage of that time. We can notice that its Chariots are also showing the Car as Carriage that is drawn by the Horses in the front. Here three different situations are shown- one is forest, second is battlefield and third is wedding. These 3 situations are also taken from Greek Mythology- Forest, where emperors used to go for hunting and entertainment too; Battlefield, because most of the times emperors were to fight in the battlefield; and Wedding, as it was an essential part of their lives. That’s why Volkswagen describe this Car as their ‘Premium Class’ vehicle.

Volkswagen Phaeton advertisement is created by DDB Mudra Group, Mumbai, India. The ad’s are influenced by Indian folk art.

In-Game Advertising and Advergaming

Most of you love to play Games, some of you resort to go to PlayStations, some of you have just bought your X-Box and some of you have opted for Nintendo. But whatever it is that your choice is, how are you taking In-Game advertising and what exactly is Advergaming. Many of us enjoy gaming unconditionally, this is precisely the reason why gaming companies have begun to look in India as the next big market. Sony launched its PlayStation 3 in 2006 and it’s Microsoft that hit the ground running in India with the X-Box 360. The world gaming market was expected to reach 43 billion US$ that was just of 19 billion US$ in 2005. A new report from research group JPR says the PC gaming market is worth over $20 billion, and that more gaming PCs have been shipped than PS3, Xbox 360 and Wii combined.

Just because of that the demand for Virtual Space and Virtual Real Estate for the purpose of Virtual Branding is increasing. So what are advertisers doing to keep up with this growing gaming population. Virtual Branding is taking basically 2 routes – In game Advertising and Advergaming. Advergaming consists taking a product and building a game around it and then showing that to as many people as possible if done right this can be a very effective marketing tool and the other option is In-game advertising. The basic difference between these two is that while Advergaming consist of building a game from scratch around your product, In-game advertising means placing your brand within a preexisting game world.

The good news for advertisers and marketers who are consistently complaining about the clutter in the real world is that these game world remain largely untouched by Advertising therefore gaming could open up new ray of opportunities and ways of communicating with the growing consumer base.

Advergaming

With banners, pop-ups and email newsletters gaining reputation as clutter and junk rather than effective online advertising tools, brand marketers continue to search for successful formulas for Internet Advertising. They may have found it in a new trend called “Advergaming”.

Advergaming is a practice of using Videogames to advertise a product. For Example, McDonald launched a game named as ‘McDonald Land’ and Doritos launched a game ‘Doritos Dash of Destruction’

With the growth of the internet, Advergames have proliferated, often becoming the most visited aspect of brand websites and becoming an integrated part of brand media planning in an increasingly fractured media environment. Advergames theoretically promote repeated traffic to websites and reinforce brands. Users choosing to register to be eligible for prizes can help marketers collect customer data. Gamers may also invite their friends to participate, which could assist promotion by word of mouth, or "viral marketing."

Sometimes sporting games are created for the same purpose. The advertiser puts its banners on all sides of that game. As shown in this Image, RITZ BITS SANDWICHES has put its banners on all sides and at the surface of this football court.

So this is Advergaming when a game is prepared just to promote a brand.

 

In-game Advertising

In-game advertising (IGA) refers to the use of computer and video games as a medium where virtual spaces are sold for advertisement purpose to the advertisers. And sometime whole real estate property from a game is sold virtually which can be used, updated and modified in any way by the advertisers.

In 2005, spending on in-game advertising was US $56 million, and this figure is estimated to grow to $1.0 billion by 2014 according to Massive Incorporated.

Look at the photo album below. These all photos are of Ads from popular games. McDonald has marked its presence in most of  the popular games, so everyone knows the name of McDonalds. Following that, Subway has bought remarkable space in the games like Counterstrike. The virtual real-estate is strong target of Soft drink Manufacturers and food chains as through advertising in Games they put an impact on game lovers that they start preferring only these brands.

There are some challenges too in In-game advertising. The environment should be suitable to the brand and should not destruct the brand image. The ads of food chains in violent games like counter strike may hinder its brand value, and a particular product may start getting known for its violence. That’s why the sporting games like FIFA, Tennis etc. are more preferred places for food chains and soft drink manufacturers.

In-Game Advertising Album VIEW SLIDE SHOW DOWNLOAD ALL

Google Made It Easy

We see ads on most of the websites as Ads by Google where advertisers have to pay per click for their ads, in the same way now Google ads will be displayed in the Online Games within their virtual spaces. Watch this video to know more.

Endorsing Ads in Online Video Games is a brilliant idea by Google. Watch this video…

In Game advertising has been made easy by Google’s AdSense. For In game Advertising Google has partnered with following companies to promote this service.

List of Marketers

These companies are promoting this In Game AdSense service

List of Publishers

This is the list of Gaming sites where Google AdSense Ads are being published. These publishers are providing some slots for AdSense Ads in their online Games. So, with the launch of AdSense for In-Games we can expect brighter scope in this Area.

Irrelevant Message in Ads

After watching Masculine Rat now you are very much familiar with the kind of innovation in Ads that is just for the purpose to make the TV viewers laugh and to make them watch the Ad in spite of changing the channel. In this race to tend people stick to the channel during Ad, lots of unrelated Ads get prepared, where the only purpose is to keep the viewers tied to a particular channel and make him laugh by an Ad. The message given by such ads is completely unrelated and unproductive with special focus on the Brand Name. These Ads begins with catching the attention of viewers, then developing the interest giving them a sort of joy & laugh and ends with focusing on Brand Name and Product. Watch this Ad and then it will be more clear.

The ad shows a boy who is doing the nonsense after eating Snikers Cruncher. He started doing crunchy activities and hit his car with a Hut. The as has no relevance with the Product. If we talk about message then it was that after eating crunchers you will become mad. The only thing was that it was a sort of mad story which was binding people to think what’s next and it focused on the Product Name at last creating the hunger for Crunchers.

I am not able to get what the Ad wants to show, except that it is emphasizing the word Doritos by relating it with Dog. From beginning to end the Ad is displaying the The Wrapper, A Snack(a piece in Boy’s Hand) and Brand Name putting the three in the minds of customers. The motive of showing wrapper is just to develop the its image in the minds of customer, showing snacks is to show that this is the real product which you are looking for and Brand Name is to remember the product and identify it when you will find it in the market leading to the purchase finally. If we look at the message it is again completely irrelevant that shows that Doritos makes Dogs smarter that Human. The Ad is full of fun and humor so does the perfect branding of the product.

Hehe… again a very funny and totally irrelevant Ad. Everyone is punching other without a reason. But the flow of Ad is so good that it is compelling to watch the full Ad. And at last as I told you that these kind of Ads focuses on the Brand name at the last, this Ad also focuses on the logo of Volkswagen and this silly campaign of VW ‘play punchdub at vw.com’. Though the campaign is silly but if it is able to develop the interest of the customers, such campaigns get so much hike that these get successful.

Masculine Rat – Innovation has no bounds

We keep on talking innovation and creativity in this blog. But what this creativity is for an Ad – It is showing an ad differently with an innovative message. The Ad below is a perfect example of that. Watch it and enjoy…

 

The Ad shows that how a rat rescue itself from death after eating Nolan’s Cheddar. This Ad is a perfect example of idea, innovation and concept. I am sure that after watching this Ad there must be smile on your faces. Stay tuned with me with such a smile on your faces and wait for the next blog to be posted very soon.