Sunny Advertising: Taking the big daddies of the ad world head on

It’s hard to forget the resounding applause in the cinema halls at virtually every dialogue that actors Amitabh Bachchan and Shashi Kapoor delivered in the1975 Yash Chopra classic, ‘Deewar’. One still remembers the confrontation scene between Kapoor (a cop) and Bachchan (his crook brother), in which Bachchan boasts that earning money the wrong way has given him every luxury he desires: a bungalow, servants, cars and a hefty bank balance. He taunts Kapoor, asking him what the life of a mere cop has given him. Kapoor silences him in one go, saying, “Mere paas maa hai (I have mother with me)”.

Apparently, the immortality of those words rang a bell deep within some members of the Indian ad fraternity, too.

The ad carries sketches of Bachchan and Kapoor (images that resemble the old movie poster). Next to Bachchan is a blurb that reads ‘Mere paas Lintas hai… O&M hai… JWT hai …Tumhaare paas kya hai?’ In response, the Shashi Kapoor blurb goes, ‘Mere paas Sunny hai.’

The body copy reads, ‘Anybody can do big ads with big budgets! But the challenge lies in creating wonders with small budgets.’ The agency’s contact numbers are provided, with Sunny’s logo and a simple tagline, ‘Value for money advertising’.

According to Sunny Advertising’s founder and managing director, Sunil Sheth, the ads are not intended to tarnish any agency’s image, as they are, essentially, tongue-in-cheek. “At Sunny, we keep on doing campaigns for our own image. We believe that few agencies put money into advertising themselves, in which case we are rather different!”

In fact, to mark 25 years of its completion in 2005, Sunny launched a publicity campaign in ‘Mid-Day’ and ‘Mumbai Mirror’.

With the present ads, Sunny hopes to reach out to three communities. Firstly, the ads aim to reach out to clients, telling them that big agencies do good work mainly when they have big budgets supporting them. “But Sunny offers clients good work even in small budget plans,” Sheth says. He quickly clarifies that Sunny isn’t competing with the bigger sharks for the large businesses. “We don’t have the scale,” he admits. “But we’re not behind in creativity, commitment and a result oriented approach.”

The second segment Sunny wishes to address is ad agencies and media houses, so that Sunny’s ‘result oriented creativity’ is noticed by them. Lastly, the ad hopes to register in the minds of the ordinary public to generate awareness.

But why launch these ads in a daily read by all, rather than a trade publication which can reach out to the primary TG – the clients – in a better way? “We don’t have the monies for media planning,” explains a candid Sheth. “Furthermore, our clients are all Mumbai based and they tend to read a ‘Mid-Day’ more than ‘The Economic Times’.” Sunny has spent Rs 12-15 lakh in advertising itself in 2006.

Some more ads of a similar nature are on their way next week. Sheth is prepared to face the brunt of a slight controversy if his point gets across. In fact, Sunny is known for picking up current/controversial issues and publishing ads about them (funded by the agency itself). For instance, Sunny issued ads against the 1993 Mumbai riots, the Harshad Mehta scam, the bar girls’ controversy, the 7/11 blasts, and even in support of the film, ‘Black’. The last ad created an uproar in the film industry because it downgraded other movies released during the same period as ‘mediocre’.

“To us, such ads are a way to express our viewpoint,” Sheth explains. According to him, if that runs them into a controversy, then so be it. “I think advertising allows us these liberties to get heard and address the public in an entertaining way.”

© 2006 agencyfaqs!