Wednesday, July 01, 2009

Brand Update : Pulsar

Faced with stiff competition from the likes of Yamaha, Honda and TVS Apache, Bajaj Pulsar have decided to strike back. The brand has been facing competition from the super bikes and was pressurised to hit back aggressively. Yamaha with its new launches and Apache are slowly eating away the market once owned by Pulsar. Pulsar reacted to this by launching new variants but on the promotional front, it was keeping silence.
In my earlier posts, I have been criticising this brand for being laid back in its promotions and commoditising its DTSI USP.
The brand has launched its revamped Pulsar 220 variant which will reinforce the brand's core promise of a performance bike.
Watch the new tvc here : Bajaj Pulsar 220

Although the ad is quite long , I really liked the climax.

And Hurray, Pulsar has a new tagline " The Fastest Indian ". After dumping the " Definitely Male " tagline, Pulsar ads never was a thriller. The product qualities made the brand a huge success. The ads just increased the familiarity and recall.

The new ad and new tagline gives a remarkable boost to this brand. And " Fastest Indian " is a very very powerful tagline. ( Hopefully Bajaj will retain this tagline for years to come ).
It is very wise for the brand to own the highest superlative . Pulsar has owned the " Fastest " superlative , that means another brand cannot be faster than the fastest. This gives a powerful boost to the brand itself. It all depends on how well Pulsar takes this proposition forward.

And being Fastest appeals directly to the target audience . Now in the promotion front, Apache and other performance bikes has to create a new superlative to beat the Bajaj.
The new ad is also well executed and packs the punch at the end beautifully . More than the ad, I liked the tagline.

It is good to see Pulsar getting the much needed promotional and creative boost.

Related Brand

3 comments:

  1. defineitely different from the kind of ads that pulsar has been doing... but i am not sure how well it communicates the 'the fastest indian' positioning...

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  2. I am guessing that the Planners worked under the assumption that since the 'looks' of the 220 remain the same and the changes are at the heart (engine), the upgrade can't be communicated "visually". Hence they decided to concentrate on the psychological USP rather that the physical product. But I fear that the product has got a few seconds too less in the ad.

    But I agree that the climax is fantastic and the TG will look forward to watch this ad a second time and even talk about it. The planners have shown that the tagline can capture the brand proposition comprehensively yet lucidly. Bull's eye.

    Now if Bajaj has to hang on to the tag line, they've to innovate their product(s) ahead of the curve. And doing that would be challenging, especially with Yamaha and Honda knocking at the door.

    The race has just begun. This lap goes to 'The Fastest Indian'.

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