Saturday, April 01, 2006

Congratulation! On Raping Humanity

Dear, dear SBI, where have you been? Were you undergoing some brutal learning session on how to rape humanity? It seems so. At least your Debit Card commercial says such.

How nicely you started with your brand image building exercise, creating 'Chimanlal Charlie' as the ambassador, followed by Auto Loans commercial with him. Though it slipped from the main track, a bit, while you talked about Home Loans and further away while informing about ATMs, still, it was in sync.

But dear, what is this? Your Debit Card commercial is just like ‘As if I care.’

Let us try to understand the positives of this commercial. All it has are perfect character choice, fantastic location choice, good direction, and neat editing.

But hey, what about the idea? Do you think the idea is one of those out-of-this-world types capable to pitch your product as the icon for new transaction system? Darling, just turn back and look at what HSBC did few years ago, when the concept of cashless world was just incepted. To get across the idea they showed a busy traveler hurdling through a crowd to catch a train, where he was pushed only to realize that his pocket was picked. However, the protagonist did not panic, but sighed, smiled and opened his wallet to find his HSBC debit card is still in place. The commercial categorically expressed the target market and the benefit of the product. Darling, it was strong enough to ring the bell even today.

However, in your communication we are yet to see the target audience and the benefits.

Astonishingly your commercial only talks about the pain and toil of one negative-beneficiary of your product. Let Bholu be in his place and try to find a profession that suits him best. Why are you bothered about Bholu? Instead why not put up the thinking cap again and recreate a commercial for your Debit Cards which is positive, striking, and sellable and not just creative for the heck of it. I believe that will also take away the hassle of calling press conference to justify your idea, what say? You never know, with your refreshed commercial aired even Bholu could arrange some moolah and apply, may be by picking pockets.

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