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Recap 2008: What made headlines in the year that was
A look at some top developments in the ad industry in the year gone by
2008 was ushered in on the back of Airtel’s Breaking Barriers TV commercial and Prasoon Joshi’s lyrical trysts with Taare Zameen Par. For those who may have sleepwalked through the year, here’s a flashback of how it was.
JANUARY
2007 had proven to be quite a year for ad agencies, with Grey Worldwide, Publicis Ambience, McCann Erickson and Rediffusion DY&R figuring among the agencies that underwent the maximum management churn. The musical chairs continued into 2008, with a new management structure at the Leo Burnett Group: Thomas Xavier took over from Nitish Mukherjee as chairman and national creative director at Orchard, while Mukherjee found himself at Burnett as its managing director.
The words “banking” and “makeover” continued to be uttered in the same breath, with Canara Bank being the latest to go the rebranding way. This turned out to be O&M’s third such effort with a bank brand in recent times (after SBI and Bank of India).
Cheil Communications won the Samsung GSM biz, Contract won Whirlpool, Rediffusion won LG Electronics. Cricketer MS Dhoni made headlines with his ‘mamaji’ and Brylcreem, Maruti swiftly called for a pitch for Swift, while Vodafone continued to ‘Make the Most of Now’.
FEBRUARY
Bates 141 and Maxus drove home with the Fiat account, while Lowe won the Maruti Swift Sedan business. The AdFest and New York Fest saw several Indians on its jury panels. FritoLay launched its biggest ever brand initiative across its five flagship brands, called ‘Chala Change ka Chakkar’.
Brand ambassadors were busy in February: Pepsi made noise with Ranbir Kapoor and Youngistaan, Akshay Kumar continued to chase his Thums Up, and Idea Cellular had Abhishek Bachchan play a tour guide at the Taj Mahal.
Tata AIG Life experimented with special effects in its advertising, Mentos made a ‘monkey’ of Darwin’s theory, while MotoYuva rocked the ad circuit with its irreverence and youth focus.
Contract got busy with a campaign for the upcoming GoaFest.
MARCH
If Pepsi was aggressively Youngistaan-ing, Coca-Cola took the softer approach with its corporate thought, ‘Little Drops of Joy’. Virgin Mobile exploded Indian telly screens with its ‘hatke’ campaigns, while Samsung announced the appointment of film actor Aamir Khan as its brand endorser. Slice found its endorser in actor Katrina Kaif.
The Indian Premier League (IPL) teams called for pitches and rigorous branding efforts followed, even as one wondered how each team would be positioned – on the basis of the players’ strengths or using the region card.
APRIL
Among other developments, Bobby Pawar took over as chief creative for the Mudra Group, Agnello Dias was promoted as chief creative officer at JWT, and TBWA India brought in Shiv Sethuraman as CEO. Prem Mehta retired from Lowe Worldwide.
The Hanes “obscenity” controversy surrounded McCann and the agency was quick to put out the flames before too much damage was done. However, a debate on scams caught steam in the industry.
Sprite kept up with its age-old tradition of spoofing on PepsiCo and took on Youngistaan’s case, this time around with its ‘Seedhi Baat’. One saw the emergence of new brands such as Kolkata Knight Riders and Delhi Daredevils: IPL’s eight teams became brands of sorts practically overnight, which had consumers picking and choosing their favourites.
MAY
Videocon called for a creative pitch. While O&M moved office in Mumbai, JC Giri moved from O&M (no pun intended). Shifting office became the norm, as Everest Brand Solutions, too, moved to another place in Mumbai. Leo Burnett’s Rameet Arora hopped over to the marketing side at Colors. Ajay Chandwani was nominated to the board at Percept, and Prabhakar Mundkur moved up as CEO.
The Luxor Highlighter campaign found great appreciation and metals at award shows, but once again, some amount of ambiguity surrounded Burnett’s involvement with the brand. Hanes called for a creative pitch post its split with McCann.
IPG launched Pickle in India, as SSC&B Lintas ceased to exist. ENIL’s Sumeet Chatterjee and Rediff’s Rahul Jauhari were the chief ingredients roped in for this ‘Picklicious’ recipe.
Speaking of pickle, mango drink brands continued their war of trying to be the original mango to its consumers. We wonder how the mango industry took that.
JUNE
India canned 23 Lions at Cannes, with the country scoring its first ever Grand Prix, a Cyber Lion and a Lion in the Integrated and Titanium category.
Back home from the festivities, mid-year saw Dhoni making noise for Lays. June was also a month of serial ‘fillers’: Some brands experimented with advertising that was aired serially in parts, to create suspense. Cases in point include the Pond’s White Beauty films by O&M, which resembled a Bollywood story (a love triangle featuring film actors Priyanka Chopra, Saif Ali Khan and Neha Dhupia), and ad films for Samsung Guru.
Domino’s called for a pitch, but shortly thereafter, decided to stick with Contract. The agency also scored with Tata Indicom. Saatchi & Saatchi walked away with the hefty Videocon pie, while the DTH venture fell to Publicis Ambience.
Lowe lost some more old hands in Pranesh Misra, who walked away after 31 years to form insight mining firm Brandscape Worldwide, and Ashish Bhasin, who moved on to Carat Media. Ogilvy India lost Pratap Bose and Anurag Gupta to Mudra.
KS ‘Chax’ Chakravarthy returned to advertising and found his calling as NCD at DraftFCB Ulka.
JULY
Priti Nair made headlines when she parted ways with Grey Worldwide after having been NCD there for less than a year. Contract was in the news for Ravi Deshpande taking on the role of chairman and CCO, in yet another development of a creative head taking on the task of running an agency. Current Contract CEO Jagdip Bakshi moved back to JWT London, while Umesh Shrikhande took over from him.
Strawberry Frog announced its intent to launch in India. Tata Sky said ‘jhingalala’ to Aamir Khan as its brand ambassador. Khan, meanwhile, also contributed to the Teach India campaign for The Times of India.
Ranjan Kapur was awarded the AAAI Lifetime Achievement Award.
AUGUST
Lintas’ True Awards truly made noise in August.
‘Saifina’ became a hit pair in the ad circuit also, and Head & Shoulders was among the first to capitalise on the duo’s ‘dandruff-free’, hence problem-free, relationship. Katrina Kaif replaced Aishwarya Rai Bachchan in the Nakshatra brand story. Action hero Akshay Kumar ‘unbuttoned’ for Levi’s 501.
Contract’s work on Tata Indicom took the emotional route with ‘Suno Dil ki Awaaz’, while its efforts on Aegon Religare, strangely reminiscent of the Balbir Pasha campaign on AIDS awareness, had people wondering if they were suffering from KILB (Kam Insurance Lene ki Bimari).
Axe came up with its Dark Temptation ads: communication which tempted more than its consumers as the ASCI pulled it up later on. Hanes, post its divorce with McCann, moved to Lowe. Siyaram’s revived its advertising with Dhoni.
Diwan Arun Nanda made room for Mahesh Chauhan at Rediffusion, while CreativeLand Asia made room for itself in general, expanding southward. Lenovo and O&M launched a heavyweight commercial for the 2008 Olympics, while Olympics hero Vijender Singh bared his muscles for Bajaj Allianz.
The industry lost Radeus’ founder and chairman, K Kurian, who passed away. Idea launched in Mumbai with a rather tongue-in-cheek point of view on the Raj Thackeray ‘Mumbaikar’ mindset.
SEPTEMBER
Tata Sky began inching away from Rediffusion by awarding its PVR business (Tata Sky Plus) to O&M. Union Bank followed the general banking industry trend and went into makeover mode. Maruti SX4 brought men ‘back’, though from where is unknown. Hero Honda went the music video way with Dhak Dhak Go and eight celebs. Asian Paints invited homemakers to a ‘Budget Wedding’.
On the people front, Shalini Dam took over as Grey’s NCD. JWT’s star CCO Agnello Dias and Santosh Padhi, Burnett’s executive creative director and national head, art, both called it quits at their respective agencies, to form a combined venture, which is in the process of firming up. Ajay Jhala took over as the CEO of BBDO.
TBWA/India was completely bought over by Omnicom. MAA Bozell did some rebranding of its own and became MAA Communications.
Airtel became the title sponsor for the Delhi Half Marathon. The Economist launched its first ever TVC in India, which was a reflection of its print and outdoor efforts.
Murmurs of BBH’s launch in India got louder as developments were firmed up.
OCTOBER
Piyush Pandey lent his deep voice yet again for Asian Paints.
Brand consultancy Serum was dissolved and Dhar & Hoon went back to Dhar & Hoon, post a parting with Chetan Marwah. Ogilvy beat JWT at the Tamizh Awards. Crayons cornered the Rs 150 crore Congress business. Bates’ Rajeev Raja returned to the Mudra Group, joining DDB Mudra.
Spoofing found its way into the DTH category: After Airtel launched a teaser about the brand ‘Coming Home Soon’, Big TV launched a spoof revealer. Undeterred, Airtel DTH and JWT unveiled their star-studded revealer, which ruled TV screens for quite a while. Airtel’s ‘voice SMS’ ads by Rediff were talked about by many.
IDBI was relaunched post O&M winning the account. Lee attempted to ‘Make History’. Bates was on a hiring spree after having lost some key people, including Subhash Kamath (whose BBH plans were now public).
The Ministry of Information and Broadcasting frowned upon the Virgin Mobile Hospital TVC, claiming it to be vulgar.
Even as the economic slowdown hit the airline industry, SpiceJet was in pitch mode.
NOVEMBER
Bharti launched a new corporate identity created by Percept/H, which was “historical” in more ways than one. The Ministry of Tourism brought on an incredible 15 agencies for Incredible India!, including Mudra and Lowe.
McCann launched its second agency, T.A.G., in India. The London International Awards saw Leo Burnett and O&M collect several metals.
Mudra’s campaign for Amrutanjan was high on creativity, but gave low budgets a whole new meaning. Crayons had to share the Congress business with JWT.
Lowe declared its plans to go back to being called Lowe Lintas, a move that provoked much nostalgia and reminiscing. JWT led the way at the Effies, winning the Grand Effie for Lead India. O&M ranked second. It’s ironic that the Effies concluded on the same night as the terror attacks began in Mumbai.
DECEMBER
Juhi Chawla was given a backseat as Kareena Kapoor took the front-stage for Kurkure, dancing to Desi Beats. Sony Bravia launched Domino City, a commercial based on the ‘Colour. Like No Other’ philosophy, out of Bates Singapore – a campaign on which Sonal Dabral worked closely.
Ex-Rediff guy and brand consultant Vinay Kanchan unveiled his book on advertising, The Madness Starts at 9, which used viral means for promotion, having been published through Sulekha.com.
Umbrella undertook rebranding efforts for the Indian Cancer Society towards the end of the year and followed it up with a new corporate identity for Saraswat Bank. VIP relaunched with film actor Shahid Kapur to the rescue; it was also a resurrection of Kapur as a brand endorser.
Ghajini gave movie marketing a whole new meaning. Pitches for Honda’s Jazz and Maruti’s Splash kept agencies busy. Asian Paints painted the final canvas this year with its Saif Ali Khan ‘Painting Up a Storm’ ad, while Idea’s ‘Democracy’ commercial was the brand’s way of bidding farewell to 2008.