Top television ads in March: 4G follows Airtel girl to no.1 spot
Two different ads for Airtel 4G, featuring Sasha Chettri, topped the ad reach index
Television commercials for mobile phone company Bharti Airtel, followed closely by those for its rival Vodafone, dominated the Mint-Ipsos-TVAdIndx survey of advertisements aired in March.
Airtel and Vodafone ads cornered three spots each in the ad reach and ad diagnostics indices—an indication of the intensity with which India’s two top mobile service providers are trying to connect with users and raise market share ahead of the roll-out of Reliance Jio Infocomm’s 4G services this year.
Two different ads for Airtel 4G, made by Taproot Dentsu India Communication Pvt. Ltd and featuring Sasha Chettri, topped the ad reach index, which measures brand awareness and recall. One of them also topped the ad diagnostics index, a gauge of softer features such as likeability, believability and enjoyability.
In one of the ads, Chettri is seen with a group of friends in Mashobra, near Shimla, and in the other, again with a group of friends, near Umiam lake, north of Shillong—enjoying what she thinks will be the welcome absence of a 4G network in far-off places. In Mashobra, however, she finds a local watching a cricket match on his mobile phone, using Airtel 4G. The story isn’t so different in Shillong. There, she finds a girl watching a video on her device.
Airtel’s television commercials (TVCs) also took the second and fourth spots on the ad reach index, while Vodafone ads, made by Ogilvy and Mather, grabbed fifth, sixth and seventh places. Ads for Lay’s India’s Magic Masala (at No.3), Colgate MaxFresh Toothpaste (No.8), the Amazon app (No.9), and smartphone brand Vivo (No.10), a sponsor of the Indian Premier League, rounded off the index. The ad for Vivo features tableaux of larger-than-life cut-outs of cricketers, dressed like superheroes.
The Airtel ad showing Chettri at Umiam shared first place on the ad diagnostics measure with a Vodafone TVC featuring a little boy and the famous pug. The ad featuring Chettri in Mashobra took second place, and a third shared fifth place with a Vodafone TVC.
A Vodafone 4G ad took third place. Ads for Colgate MaxFresh Toothpaste and Lay’s India’s Magic Masala tied in fourth place. Ads for the e-commerce marketplace Shopclues.com, the Amazon app, Frooti, Vivo smartphone/IPL and 7Up cornered the last five places.
2. & 4. Airtel 4G
These ads from the same series show two very different locations: Umiam lake, north of Shillong, and a cave near Igatpuri in Maharashtra. At the lake, Sasha Chettri finds a local girl watching a video, thanks to the Airtel 4G network. The second ad shows a group of boys watching a movie in a cave, again thanks to the Airtel 4G network. Chettri is left dumbfounded. The tag line: ‘India’s widest 4G network.’
3. Lay’s India’s Magic Masala
When Ranbir Kapoor misses his ferry, a young man offers a lift in his boat. Kapoor settles in and opens a packet of Lay’s India’s Magic Masala. The young man wants some but Kapoor is unwilling to share his packet. Miffed, the young man lets go of the sailing rope, ensuring that Kapoor topples into the water. He then grabs the packet. The tag line: ‘Love to love it.’
5. Vodafone SuperNet 4G
A little boy beats a drum that has SuperNet 4G written on it. The Vodafone pug sits next to him. The tag line: ‘Vodafone SuperNet 4G, the world’s largest 4G network, is here.’
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