The effect of advertisements

Have you all seen the Pepsi my-can advertisements? When they had first launched that thin pepsi can, they had Shahrukh and John abraham with some random guy calling them uncle and John smirking on shahrukh and so on... Then there was this Ranbir and deepika ads also. If you notice, the ads show a different way of holding these thin cans. You can check out that ad here

http://www.afaqs.com/perl/advertising/creative_showcase/index.html?id=13845&media=TV

Actually I did not like any of those ads. Specially the Ranbir Kapoor one. And I had thought that the style of holding the can was not just strange but also inconvenient. However, from what I saw couple of days back, I stand corrected.

I was traveling on a private bus and we had stopped for a quick Chai. I decided to grab an ice-cream. The Orange candy! Sadly, they did not have orange candy in stock so I picked up a choco bar. And after I picked up the ice cream, a lot of people did. I saw the bus driver also come that side and pick up an ice cream. And after that I saw him taking out a pepsi can from the fridge. I haven't seen bus drivers drinking pepsi cans so my eyes followed what he was doing. And then I saw him open the can and then hold the can in exactly the same fashion as those pepsi my-can ads. I was amazed.

The point of advertising is to create a certain wow-factor around the brand and then get customers to try it. One of the basic tenets of advertising is to create a want where none exists. And if its a very homogenous product category then create the distinction between various brands. When I saw the bus driver holding the can the way he did, I thought the pepsi my-can ad had achieved its purpose. If I were the brand manager and if I had seen this, I would be proud of my effort! :)