Samsung V/s Micromax: Slap on the face

I never felt thrilled about offensive advertising, I understand when a commercial says “Smart people use this product”, but I have serious reservations when the advertisers’ starts saying people not using our product are idiots, even more downgrading situation is, when they say, “hey man, you are not good enough for our product”, seriously in this era of global competition how can a brand even think of offending other segments to impress their target group.

A couple of years ago TVS launched Apache with advertisement where young people riding this bike were ridiculing people who didn’t had this bike. They made fun of a boy doing routine work for his household by making him look like a momma’s boy, then of a simple couple which was on a stroll with their little baby, by making the husband look lustful and spineless, and in the end of guys who were working for their boss as idiots, just because these people didn’t had this motor cycle or these kind of people doesn’t deserve this kind of superior product.

I can appreciate a brands requirement to be distinctive in the market, “rebellious” and maybe even “spoiled” in this case, but the problem is TVS Apache targets college going, fun loving kids for this product, but what our dear advertiser forgets is, how these kids are going to purchase this bike on their own? The target group for this product doesn’t work as they are college going crowd, so these kids need to go to daddy for money, and daddy who has worked hard all his life to get his children into college and saved enough to get them a vehicle, watches this advertising where working guys are ridiculed, and now daddy is pissed.

I don’t know whether working class people were pissed or not after watching this commercial, but the hell I was, and I sworn to my God that I would never purchase this bike (as I was planning on purchasing a motorcycle for myself in those days). Work of advertising is to convert potential customers into actual customers not to lose them altogether.

However now the new commercials of TVS Apache released in 2012 have started to concentrate on their features rather than offending others, maybe they got the massage.

Now Samsung made the same kind of mistake of offending all those who doesn’t have the ‘Galaxy Y series’ Smart phone, by calling them uncle in a derogatory way. Again the big mistake, targeting the ‘hip and smart’ college going kids while making fun of working class guys, my dear Samsung, working class guys are the biggest spender on mobile phones in India, even if young generation is purchasing your product the money is coming from the same “Uncle” kind of guys.

However twist in the tale is Micromax Mobiles gave Samsung their own taste of medicine, their new advertising shows a girl (presumably having Samsung phone in her hand), making fun of a guy by constantly calling him uncle, as soon as she is finished two guys having Micromax Mobiles starts making fun of her by calling her “Aunty” while talking about superior features of Micromax over Samsung.
 

It is uncommon in India to have such kind of advertising, where directly products of competitors are bashed, even in this commercial Samsung name never comes up, but everybody gets the reference. Similar kind of advertising can be seen where Bajaj Motorcycle is making fun of presumably Hero Honda (rather Hero Moto Corp now a days), but what Micromax and Bajaj dose is to make fun of competitors products, as they talk about superiority of their product over that of others, they don’t make fun of people who are using these product, as they very well know, that this is the same target group to whom they need to sell their product as well.

In the end all I can say to Samsung and TVS is, it is very easy to make fun of others, but try to do the right thing by trying to concentrate on your own strong points otherwise your competitors can use your own stretegy againt you, so rather than calling others idiots, try to be smart yourself.