How do you summarise a whole year of highs and lows, serendipity, mundanity and everything else in between? Maybe what caught your eye this year has nothing to do with what is presented in this article. The nature of media changed such that each person has a feed unique to them. Now, you can choose to follow only the people you care about. Maybe you have adblockers active on every platform. It is also possible that the brands you buy from aren’t big on mainstream marketing but communicate with you in a very tailor-made way. That way, they don’t go too wrong or make headlines.
Regardless, in the spirit of nostalgia, let’s take a look at things brands did that compelled people to talk.
Jaguar’s Leap To ‘JaGUar’
Whose first reaction when they saw that 30-second launch video of a diverse set of people dressed in futuristic-themed, neon clothing wasn’t, “What the hell is this?” It looked like Jaguar was moving into high fashion but wasn’t even getting that right. For a brand that statuesque, “creating shock like that felt like a marketing gimmick that is completely out of place,” Krupa Sheth Kapadia, Creative Director at Strategdy, said when I asked her if she thought their strategy was to create ‘shock and awe’.
Even more shocking was their announcement that they had dropped their pouncing jaguar logo for one that said ‘JaGUar’ – very minimal typography with some upper and lower-case letters thrown into the mix for some originality. People were not happy. But what it did do was make Jaguar the talk of the town. Currently, the video has over 3.5 million views, countless reshares and generated lots of conversation.
When they released the actual campaign video, fans might have been relieved to see that the logo they loved, the pouncing jaguar, still made appearances on the vehicle—the brand didn’t completely do away with it. But when the bar was set so low, everything that came after felt like a redemption. Opinions still range on the rebrand but an article published in Forbes broke it down and labelled it genius. Jaguar had been going through financial difficulties. Turning their range around and re-launching as an electric-only brand, gives them a clean slate to start.
Since their target audience wasn’t able to carry the brand to profit, it appears as if they had nothing to lose by disappointing them. In the words of Sanjeev Kotnala, Founder of Intradia World, “The brand believes it will win—and I love the act for the sheer madness.”
Influencer Vigilantes
Since the dawn of social media, influencers have taken many different shapes and forms. When influencers first came into the scene, they were a source of authenticity for many people. Sooner or later, brands got the better of them and now, influencers were talking about new and different products every other day with most reviews being positive. Thats when people turned dubious because how is it that every other product is “so amazing” and “so perfect”?
Now, we have a new set of influencers who double up as “vigilantes.” But what’s most interesting is that their discoveries do not involve intense lab research or rigorous jolting. The information they present to us that is often blowing people’s minds is just the back of the label.
We let our brand trust lead our purchase decisions, with full faith in how that product was advertised to us. We expect that advertising authorities, the government and corporations will look into whether that information is fact or not, turning a blind eye. Then, we don’t bother with the fine print—whose fault is it?
But as the tale goes, when people in authority don’t do much for public interest, it comes down to the vigilant few to make a mark. And make a mark these influencers did. Whether it was Revant Himatsingka or Shashank Mehta, they garnered eyeballs, became sources of information for people who cared to learn more, and caused major and minor reputation damage to brands.
They also lead to some systemic changes being made—like the Indian Government tightening laws on what FMCG brands are allowed to say, forcing brands to market their product authentically to consumers. On the brand side too, they’ve realised you can’t just say one thing and do another. Ingredient lists will no longer go unseen and they’ve started changing the composition of their products, opting for better ingredients. Small changes, but a win is a win.
The Spiritual Tourism Boom
Massively backed by the government, Ayodhya turned into a seven-star development within the span of a couple of months and the buzz around it moved from local to global. With the influx of people and the livelihood generated, brands started to flock to its lands to provide automated toothpaste dispensers, branded changing rooms, EV charging stations, and parking solutions… for every consumer pain point, there is a branded solution.
While spiritual tourism in India is no rookie given the country’s tryst with spirituality and religion, Ayodhya took it to the next level, uncovering the opportunity for both mass and luxury brands. Ritesh Agarwal, CEO at OYO even said that based on data, when Ayodhya first came up, the demand for hotels was far outpacing popular destinations like Goa and Nainital.
Dabur, Coca-Cola, ITC and more took up on-ground sampling and experiential marketing to integrate the brand experience into the spiritual experience. Veterans do agree though that Maha Kumbh Mela 2025 has become a much bigger conversation, as the Ayodhya hype starts to calm down.
Sandeep Goyal, Chairman at Rediffusion, talks about the kind of work that’s being churned out for spiritual destinations saying, “Ayodhya is a must-do for most brands today. But the innovations at Ayodhya lack the punch of the Maha Kumbh.” The Maha Kumbh Mela of 2025 will be the largest religious gathering in the world where India Inc is set to spend INR 3,000 crore on branding and marketing in the span of 45 days.
Breaking Business Class Hearts
Most people will agree that the Vistara brand stood for completely different values than the Air India brand. Vistara was known for luxury, premium services while Air India was primarily known for its value-for-money offering and nostalgia. “Air India could have easily kept both the brands alive. They have enough bandwidth to do that,” says Naresh Gupta, Co-Founder of Bang In The Middle. To Goyal, one of the saddest parts of the merger was the lack of ads that could have celebrated the marriage of the two brands.
With aeroplane brands falling from the sky and dissipating into nothingness—take the likes of Kingfisher and Jet, for example—the market is vicious. While having another brand in the space could have added more colour and contour to the sky, there must have been perfectly technical reasons behind the decision to merge the brands.
Air India has said that the brand will raise its standards to that of Vistara and beyond, but people are not quite convinced. “When a smaller entity and larger entity merge, it is the qualities of the larger entity that end up being more prominent,” Kapadia laments.
Soon after the merger, Yesudas Pillai, Co-Founder of Y&A Transformation, recalls his experience flying with Air India, “What struck me most was how quickly the DNA of the brand seemed to have changed. Vistara, once synonymous with refined service and premium experiences, felt like a shadow of its former self.”
Print Takes A Sniff
Tech has done a lot of fun things this year but a few front-page print ads captured the imagination of the ad fraternity. They say print is dead but Swiggy Instamart made us question that statement for a hot second. The Instamart ad in newspapers delivered one thing that digital could not—the ability to give you an olfactory experience.
This is not the first time an ad in the newspapers gave people scent – perfume brands had already done it. But what unites the country through its hot and ratched summer more than mangoes?
“Every time I hear someone say, “Print is dead” during a pitch meeting, I feel an overwhelming urge to roll my eyes to the back of my head. But a decade in this business has taught me how to perform CPR on the idea before it flatlines,” says Rishabh Nagar, a freelance copywriter. “Perhaps the only irony here is that we’re ‘celebrating print’ on LinkedIn!”
Crossing The ‘Trust AI’ Bridge
An ad that caught most people’s eye and for all the wrong reasons was Coca-Cola’s ad for the holidays. Otherwise known for its iconic and timeless commercials, Coca-Cola did not crush this one. The ad made entirely by AI resembled a dystopian nightmare for creatives. And for a brand with massive budgets and access to resources, “it was an underwhelming delivery,” says Goyal.
The ad signified that AI is a hero in the industry’s tenet to do more with fewer resources. AI is being used to write scripts, create renders, generate celebrities and more. But on the bright side, the emotionless, expressionless commercials just go on to highlight that it is not there yet—there are hard limitations of the current wave of content.
Recently, Rediffusion released a fully AI-generated Christmas ad for TATA Power. Pramod Sharma, their Creative Director, told us about the challenges they experienced in making it—from getting the prompts right, editing AI renders and getting the Indian skin tone right—the whole process is long drawn out, and expensive. Despite all that, he is certain that AI is the future.
During an interview with FCB Kinnect’s CCO, Neville Shah said he believes AI needs to be against the backdrop of an idea and make it “so much better.” He gave the example of the ‘WoMen’s Football’ ad that went viral and won a Grand Prix at the Cannes Lions. The ad for French telecom giant Orange used deepfake technology to superimpose players from the men’s national team onto clips from women’s games. The simple insight slapped sexism and beliefs that women’s sport is just not as exciting as men’s.
For brands that still insist on using tech at the forefront of their work, “you need to consider whether the audience is tech-loving and is going to be impressed by how simple the execution is,” concluded Shah.
The Year 2025
Memorable moments garner shock and anticipation, and get people up in a tizz. A couple of days later, more context is presented and it’s already time to laugh at our previous convictions.
Josy Paul, Chairman at BBDO India, told me he wants us to inaugurate 2025 as the year of human listening—given that it seems like everything—from devices to AI, tech and our phones are already doing it (and evidently better than us). Cheers to the New Year! May we pick our own brains, take risks and push our full potential.
