Did you notice the new Tata Sky Plus ad?

I just saw it today, and couldn’t help writing about it. It’s basically another ad in the Aamir-Gul series. I liked it because it has a very interesting social dimension to it. As the other ads in the Aamir-Gul series, this one’s too humorous, however it does put across an interesting social message, in a tongue-and cheek, yet authentic fashion. The social message is that of family relationships.

The context is that of a friend that Aamir is talking to, over snacks at their (Aamir- house, about why he should not bother about “Women’s singles tennis match” on TV, and let his wife watch her favourite daily soap instead. Aamir is perfect in playing a social evangelist helping his friend understand the importance of compromises that wives make in their day-to-day living to harmoniously align themselves in their spouse’s life, and hence he (Aamir’s friend) shouldn’t really bother about missing a tennis match on TV!

While Aamir is at his convincing best, Gul is shown watching her daily soap on TV, apparently enjoying Aamir’s conversation more than the show. Because she knows Aamir’s just being too ideal, as he’s already recording the Women’s singles Tennis match on their Tata Sky while Gul watches her daily soap. He’s going to enjoy his match later, once Gul’s done with her TV.
Humorously though, but the ad is effective at 2 levels, one, in brining out the importance of the “Record” feature of Tata Sky Plus and two, in bringing out the “effectiveness” of Tata Sky Plus in positively contributing to a Husband-Wife relationship (atleast by reducing their quarrels over the TV!)

Checkout the ad, by following the link below

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K6nQouuqJmc

Learning Is So Much Fun With Tata Sky DTH !

Parents often complain about the time their kids spend in front of the TV and how it affects their studies. However, proponents of television have always argued that TV can be a fun learning medium for kids. Till now, learning on TV, was restricted to a “Sesame street” or “Dora the explorer” kind of kids programs where puppets and cartoons taught children about new things. However, it was very one-dimensional and not interactive at all restricting the potential of the medium.

Tata Sky services by pioneering interactive services like Actve stories and Actve learning adds a new dimension to this TV learning process. As mentioned in one of my earlier posts, Actve learning is a quiz based educational service covering math, GK & science for children in age group of 7-12 years while Actve stories is TV based story delivery that children can read and listen to it at their own pace.

Recently, as a part of Actve stories, Tata Sky had launched the Great Personalities Week. (Scheduled to run till 3rd Feb 2009) the series brings about information about the lives of our great leaders who have made significant contributions for the country in a fun and informative way. It is designed to teach and narrate the life proceedings of such great personalities, including the immediate past president of India, Dr.APJ Abdul Kalam, Mother Teresa and Mahatma Gandhi. The list continues as the series continues.

I could not but help think of my own years of learning history, those dreary lessons where teachers in their monotones tried to drill impossible to remember facts in our heads. I had developed such a dislike for history remembering all those dates and treaties! History seems such fun with these interactive stories. It would develop an interest in these young children. I wish we too had such a fun way of learning history as kids.

I think this is just the beginning and interactive television shall soon be the new medium for education. Learning from visuals is much more effective than learning from texts. As this trend catches on, Tata Sky will have a big captive audience among the school going kids. Tata Sky is promoting this service in schools across India and has met with a positive response from children as well as teachers. These services have potential to be valuable teaching aid for the teachers as well.

If you have young kids at home, just put on these services for them and make their learning fun. You won’t have a reason to complain about TV anymore!
To check out the whole dedicated website created by Tata Sky for its interactive services for kids, follow this link

http://www.tatasky.com/education/index.html

New Contests on Your Tata Sky!

Check out the new contests in Actve games section involving “Snakes”, the game offered through Actve games and “Meerabai Not Out!” which is another interesting contest available till 15th Feb 09!

Follow this link for details on these contests
http://www.tataSky.com/offers-actve-games.html#p

Now Go Shopping while you watch TV on your Tata Sky!

Since inception Tata Sky has been (and rightly projected itself as) a product for the family. They have always considered interests of every member, of every age group in the family, from a preschooler to a retired grand member of the family. This is largely reflected in the whole range of Interactive services that Tata Sky offers (read my earlier posts in the Tata Sky for…series).

In their constant endeavor to help us get more out of our Tata Sky, they have added another actve service called “Actve Mall”. Actve Mall is an interactive home shopping service for all subscribers of Tata Sky. It features various consumer products that can be viewed & bought by all Tata Sky subscribers. Isn’t this fascinating?

It’s a fantastic extension of the Direct-to-home context. It’s also about convenience, where while you’re watching TV, you could also go shopping!

Well I guess the content-logistics would be provided by the respective “shopping” partners, but that’s absolutely acceptable as that’s not TS’s core business. What’s interesting is that Tata Sky always attempts to bring in relevant content/feature partners that augment their core offering to their customers. That to me is true consumer orientation.

I haven’t explored Actve Mall as yet, I shall return with my experiences with this service soon!

Tata Sky DTH - Asin – “The Washing Machine” Ad

As an extension to the earlier post on the Tata Sky – Asin ads, here let me talk about the second ad the “Washing Machine” one.

Actually both ads belong to the same theme, that of “real life humour”. It’s just that here the source of humour is different. However this one’s also an Asin ad all through She’s very believable and carries the entire execution quite comfortably.
The key message that is brought out in this ad is that of “Tata Sky Prompt (On Time) service”.
Let’s get into the ad, the source of humour here is the “washing machine”. Yes. Asin again plays the smart south Indian house wife to perfection. She calls up the TS customer service asking them to fix their washing machine, which has not been working since a few days now!!! Conversational humour in integral to this call.

The Tata Sky customer service person isn’t able to fathom (and rightly so) the calling customer’s need. He goes on to courteously clarify that he would be able to help her with anything related to Tata Sky, and washing machine had clearly nothing to do with Tata Sky!!!. However She (Asin) goes on to explain that her washing machine has not been working properly and washing machine guys are not responding to her complaints. She seemed really frustrated as the washing machine had been down for a few days then. She further explains that the reason she had called them (Tata Sky) is because she believes Tata Sky is prompt and is known for On Time Service. Hence they could extend this promptness to even help her fix her washing machine!!!

The ad closes with the perplexed/bewildered/surprised customer service executive on the screen along with the secondary propositions (in the context of this ad) of “Set Top Box Replacement gurantee” and “24X7 Customer support” in addition to the primary proposition of “On Time Service”.

Quite humorous again. What I liked about these ads is that the key proposition is very easy to understand for a customer, the way it’s delivered.

At a sublime level the ads also work on bringing out the “dependency” of the Tata Sky customers on the brand. This dependency is clearly a function of trust that the customers place on Tata Sky customer service (and hence Tata Sky), that they look forward to them for literally anything that bothers their normal course of existence. This is also quite incidentally the source of humour in both the ads. That’s the reason why I call it “Intelligent humour”.

If you've not seen this "Washing machine ad" earlier, check it here http://in.youtube.com/watch?v=Sg6-Oq7Gxkk

Tata Sky DTH – Asin - “Replace Maid” Ad

In my earlier post, I had highlighted the new brand association of Tata Sky with the Ghajini female lead, Asin. Here we’ll talk about how this association is manifested in two of the first TVCs (featuring Asin) released by Tata Sky in South India markets.

Let’s start with the Tata Sky “Replace Maid” ad. Any advertising’s goal is fundamentally to put across the brand’s message effectively enough into the customer’s mind. The creative energies of ad makers therefore concentrate on what the “key” brand message is and how best the communication could be crafted to bring it out effectively for the target group.

The key message in this ad is clearly the fact that “Tata Sky provides set top box replacement guarantee”. At a concept level, humour is being introduced to bring this message out effectively. That’s because we all like to laugh, don’t we? Makers of this ad know this.

Anyway, in this ad, humour is constructed by introducing a situation where a housewife (played to perfection by Asin) is quite psyched out about her maid who’s very careless and obstinate (she doesn’t dust the house properly or breaks expensive crockery and so on). Hence she (Asin) calls Tata Sky (customer service) and requests them to replace her maid!!!

Her conversation with Tata Sky customer service representative is well scripted as it brings out the key message quite convincingly. She tells the customer service person to replace their maid because the Tata Sky Set Top Box never defaults and hence there’s never a need to replace it, so their service of “Set Top box replacement” is never used! Hence Tata Sky might as well replace her maid!

It’s intelligent use of humour to bring out the point “Set Top Box replacement guarantee” as a Tata Sky Service proposition (also inadvertently highlighting that the Tata Sky Set Top Box never goes bad!).

The ad closes with the secondary propositions (in the context of this ad) of “On Time Service” and “24X7 Customer support” in addition to the primary proposition of “Set Top Box replacement guarantee”.

The other highlight of execution is Asin, She’s effective in portraying a contemporary and smart south Indian housewife, and is very believable and at ease in her role in the ad. What I also liked about the ad was that Asin wasn’t really used as a celebrity endorsing the brand directly; however she was just projected as the girl next door, and a very acceptable Tata Sky customer. This really contributed to the genuineness in the whole communication.

A lateral interpretation of this the ad could be that of people’s trust & dependability on Tata Sky customer service (& hence Tata Sky at large). So much that they end up calling them for other household issues that plague their day to day living!

All in all a Good ad. Take a look at the ad in by post below or follow this link http://in.youtube.com/watch?v=6TWsTW03ngk

Asin for Tata Sky!

As most of us are aware of the fact that Asin, the South India Actress (who also stars with Aamir in the recent flick Ghajini) is now the new face of Tata Sky (they already have Aamir Khan), let me bring in my small perspective on it here.

I think it’s a pretty intelligent move. South remains a fierce DTH battle zone and to get someone like Asin, whose fan following in the south seems to be increasing by the day, can only do good to your brand in a heavily competitive market.

Also when you get a brand ambassador on board, you don’t just look at his/her popularity, but you also look at the possible resonance of the ambassador with the brand. And if there are synergies in bringing the two together, then you are in for a really acceptable projection of the brand to the outside world, through the brand ambassador. This thought is validated through one of the interviews by Vikram Mehra (Tata Sky Chief Marketing Officer), and I quote him here, "Tata Sky and Asin have a lot in common. Both are young, energetic achievers and both enjoy a high degree of credibility with consumers. As our new face she will be influential in reinforcing the attributes of the Tata Sky brand and reiterate our positioning."

Tata Sky, through Asin, can expect and strong acceptance in the south Indian market. But this association might not benefit Tata Sky only in South, With Ghajini being a National movie (and from what one reads around, its also a national hit), The Tata Sky – Asin association could prove to be a useful one even at a national level!

Check out the brand new Asin TVCs for Tata Sky below (If you’ve not already seen them on TV).

The 'Kupamma' (Tamil) Ad



The Washing Machine Ad