i had heard someone say a long time back, that there is no such thing as a bad advertisement…if you are able to recall an ad after a considerable duration, then perhaps that advertisement did make an impact, and its purpose got solved..you recalled the brand/ad. i partly agree to this chain of thought, as i may recall a brand due to the extremely horrible nature of its ad, but that would not be reason enough for me to purchase…i would like to mention here a few companies, who are fairly consistently seen on TV, and have been able to build fairly good brand recall, but as a critic, i can only say that their advertising sucks…

1) MDH : The shahenshah of pathetic advertising….this doyen of the indian masale industry, has made it a point to appear in each and every ad that his empire makes. almost like that reddy chap who comes as an attachment with country club ads…or like the “parenting expert, sudha gupta, of mother’s pride”…all said and done, the strategy of mahashian di hatti is fairly straight and desi….book spots on an annual or long term basis, more so with newly launched channels, who go all out to sell cheap initially, as the media planning and buying gets ruled by weird numbers, and not gut feel…so this guy did some smart bookings early on with colors, for example, and this gamble has been paying off for MDH, more often than not….

2) Paras pharma: perhaps my favorite advertiser. pros at creating brands: livon, dermicool, moov, setwet, krack, itchguard, d’cold, ringguard, borosoft…..you will not remember them for any of their advertising, as most of them have been quite insignificant and poor..but the blitz unleashed for each of the brands is commendable, and that’s how paras has been able to create a slew of brands out of no where..

3) Hero Honda: good and stable products, supported by some terrible advertising. the concept is fairly simple…suddenly a series or a deal with a channel comes through, and the agency comes up with a shoddy ad just in time, so that brand status quo remains…advertising be damned..

4) Pepsi: Pespi may be amongst the world’s best known advertisers, but certainly when it comes to India, most of their campaigns have been atrocious. Except for the nothing official about it, and the sanjana campaigns, they have not really impressed me so far.

5) Nokia: Considering the amount of money they have pumped in to the media, their advertising, at best, remains pedestrian. No clear strategy in place.

6) Samsung & LG: I am clubbing the 2 electronics majors together, primarily because their products are fairly similar, and so is the crassness of their advertising.

7) Videocon: I am still unable to get a grasp on their new logo, the green animated thingies they have been throwing at us, and the USP of their brand which they want us to digest.

Maruti: Not a single ad comes out as being good. Perhaps the ki karan papa, petrol khatam hi nahi honda hai is the only notable exception, but if i only look at the way their swift and sx4 camapaigns have been handled off late, the focus is clearly not on making memorable ads.

That pretty much sums up my Top 9 worst, large advertisers flooding our selling their stuff in India off late. Huge media budgets, the only real strategy being to be on screen and in consumer’s mind share at all times, but at a cost of producing a series of bad advertisements. One look at how Vodafone/Hutch and Airtel have been doing it, sums up the difference. They are also always on the mind share, but the quality of their advertising remans top class, with extremely well made and memorable advertisements always there for the taking.