Axe deo is facing the fiercest competition in its life in India with local and MNC deo brands breathing down its neck. According to certain reports that came in ET Now's Brand Equity show, the brand had lost its leadership position in the Indian market to the new entrant Fogg.
One of the reason for the trouble is that Axe's positioning has been under threat. almost all deo brands has been aping the positioning theme of Axe thereby diluting the brand's uniqueness in the Indian market. Axe was not able to do much about it and continued with its strategy of frequent launches of new variants and importing ads from its global markets.
For a change, Axe decided to go local in its promotional strategy and roped in the current Bollywood heartthrob Ranbir Kapoor to endorse the brand. The news came as a surprise since Axe never ( in my knowledge) ran a campaign using a celebrity in India.
Axe launched its new variant Axe Blast with the new celebrity endorsement . The ad is currently on air.
Watch the ad here : Axe Ranbir Ad
What was shocking is that the ad is the exact copy of an older ad ( more than 7 years) of Axe Clicker which is a variant available in markets outside India. The Axe Clicker brand featured Ben Affleck .
Watch the ad here : Axe Ben Affleck
Now if the brand Axe can afford to bring Ranbir to the fold, why did the brand chose to just copy an old theme and present it in the Indian market ?
Its so cheap a strategy to adopt in an era where information is available to everyone. And its a totally a wrong move when the competition is eating away the share. Ranbir will get eyeballs and may in the short-run help the brand to reinforce the existing awareness.The current approach is sending warning signals regarding the laziness of the marketing department in attempting to find an easy way out rather than brainstorming on developing a differentiation strategy to take on the competition.
Absolutely True,It’s a shame copywriters can’t even come up with original ideas for an ad that run up to 60 seconds.
ReplyDeleteIn total disagreement with you...whenever a brand copies the concept for an ad, their point of vie is that the ad has already been successful in communicating the message. But whether to use it as it is or localizeit will depend upon the type of product...
ReplyDeleteYup I agree with anonymous 9:53 AM, Objective of the ad is to communicate the message and this communicates the positioning of Axe in the right manner. Also it is a small bunch of people(when compared to universe sample is small)who knows the international version, If I have a good copy why should I waste my budget and energy.
ReplyDeleteIn-fact it is better than other copies of axe like bum bite, etc.,
Being a leading marketing opinion blog, the least you can do is use grammatically correct English
ReplyDelete