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Archive for the Category "Cartoons"

New healthy Indian snack…. Author: Jatinder Pal Singh Broca Jul 14

New healthy Indian snack….

Recently,I tasted a new brand of  a snack launched by Parle Agro. I was quite impressed with it. So here is a piece on this brand called HIPPO : 

Company : Parle Agro

Ad Agency : Creativeland Asia

Brand Analysis
 
Another brand has entered into the highly competitive snack- food market. The brand Hippo was nationally launched recently by Parle Agro. The Indian branded snack-food market is worth Rs 6500 crore has now become a battle ground of titans.
Indian snack-food market growing at 25% p.a is witnessing marketing fight worth watching. The players are trying every tricks of the trade. This intense marketing competition has expanded the market and also created new segments. One such new segment is the healthy snack segment.

Marketers were aware of the gradual trend among consumers towards healthy foods. Although this trend is limited to certain sections of society, marketers are calculating that healthy snack-foods will become a mainstay category in the snack-food market. Infact Ms Indra Nooyi of Pepsico had openly stated her vision of Pepsico leading the healthy food movement.
 
The healthy snack segment in the Indian Snack market has got a big boost in recent times with the launch of Aliva brand by Pepsico and Monaco Smart Chips by Parle. Earlier, Lays tried its hand by launching a low-calorie version to counter Bingo’s claim of ‘baked not fried ‘proposition. The high profile campaign of Monaco Smart Chips featuring Aamir Khan put the spotlight on the healthy angle of snacks.
 
Hippo calls itself ” Delicious Baked Munchies “. This baked wheat based munchy is neither a potato chips nor a biscuit, but something in between ( source Business India). The munchies are available in Pizza flavor,Chinese Manchurian, Hot N Sweet, Thai Chilly , Yoghurt Mint Chutney and Indian Chatpatta.
The brand is priced at Rs 10 per pack.
 
Hippo is currently running its launch campaign across channels.

Hippo has tried to position itself differently from the rest of the brands. While the other snack brands have positioned itself on product properties, Hippo brand tried to take the generic need platform.
For example :
Lays is positioned as a convenient snack,
Bingo on the different tastes,
Aliva also on health + taste
Monaco Smart Chips on health ( baked ).
 
Hippo is being positioned as a hunger- killer. The brand wants to be a guilt-free snack for hunger moments. The brand is banking on two properties – made from wheat and free of MSG & GMO to prove its healthy snack claim.
 
The brand also chose a different way to communicating its positioning to the consumer . The brand is trying to tell a story. The story is based on the premise that ‘ Hunger is the root cause of all evil. So the brand motto is ‘ fight hunger, fight evil’. The brand has adopted the mascot Hippo who is in the forefront of eliminating hunger and thus eliminating evil. Hippo has the tagline ” Hippo Fights Hunger “. 
 
Although the brand has tried to tell a story and successfully created an initial hype, I have serious reservations about the differentiation of the brand. The brand has taken the ” Hunger” platform, but how is it different from other snack-foods that offer same qualities ? How is Hippo different from a Bingo or Monaco Smart Chips ? .

I feel a lack of uniqueness in the brand. The problem of lack of differentiation will come into forefront when the initial consumer interest dies down. Without a clear USP, the brand needs to constantly stay on top of the Share of Noise to drive the sales. If you observe the campaigns of Parle Agro brands, the company adopts a ” On/Off ” kind of advertising strategy. Sometimes there are lot of ads, and sometimes, there is no sign of any brand communication. In a category like Snacks such intermittent burst of ads may not work. One needs to have a steady continuous stream of campaigns  to drive the sales.
 
From the first campaign, I don’t see any attempt from the brand to create a differentiation. What the brand had tried to do was to establish brand familiarity which it had done successfully. But the brand needs to find a meaningful differentiation if it wants to survive for the long term. The brand can develop its positioning further using its core brand promise of ” Guilt-free snack for hunger moments “.
 
One of the most striking aspect about this brand is the packaging. The company has put in lot of work behind making the packaging stand out in stores. Since the purchase of snacks are highly spontaneous, the packaging offers immense strategic importance. Hippo has really differentiated itself from the rest of the crowd in the packaging front. 
 
Another aspect of the brand is its emphasis on ‘ After-Marketing”. After- Marketing is what the brand does after it has sold itself to the consumer. Like Appy Fizz, Hippo has cleverly used the packaging to engage the consumers after the purchase. The pack contains interesting information and one-liners which takes the brand-consumer conversations beyond advertising .
 
As a new product launch, Hippo has done all the right marketing moves. The brand has a catchy name , good product qualities, excellent packaging, nice pricing, distribution reach etc. It has also created right kind of noise in the media during the launch. The real test is after the initial euphoria. The brand is fighting players with deep pockets. It will be interesting to watch how Hippo takes on the giants.
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Dear Readers, as a bonus for having read this piece, I am now giving you a link to which you should go if you love Punjabi
folk songs and dancing to Bhangra beats.
 
Yes a HIPPO is very much part of the song and dance show.
 
E N J O Y !! Balley Balley :
 
Category: Cartoons, Comments to print media, Ideas  | 2 Comments
Monkey Business–Part II Author: Jatinder Pal Singh Broca Mar 31
Monkey Business–Part II
 
Having finished my last stock of Bananas, I thought of sharing some Monkey Jokes with you (Yes! There are many of them jumping here n there on the internet !)
 
My favourites are as under :
 
Monkey Joke-I  
 
 
Monkey Joke-II 
 
Monkey Joke -III
 
Well this one is a funny ad on an Indian brand of underwear ! I love it for its wit and excution. Click on or go to the following link please ! Don’t be afraid ! Be Macho Yaar !!
  
Title of the ad on Youtube : amul macho – orangutan
 
BTW, the model girl in the ad is named SANA KHAN ,who has some ads and some south Indian movies to her credit.She has her own fan club too ! Here are some of her pictures :
 

 
                                        
     
                          
 
I’ll take a B..R..E..A..K.. till I check to see that my innerwears are safe on the clothesline and the monkeys have not looted them !
  
See you soon with MONKEY BUSINESS -PART III !
 
Category: Cartoons, Humour, Social Commentry  | Leave a Comment
Doodles all the way….. Author: Jatinder Pal Singh Broca Mar 04
Doodles all the way…..
  
When I had named my blog as “Broca’s Doodle Pad” I had meant to use it as a platform for posting my thoughts,feelings and experiences on a variety of things,issues,people,places and subjects.
  
Over the years,it has turned into a very compelling and active medium of my expressions and I have gained many friends and readers  through it. I have become a compulsive blogger !
  
Yes,I confess,I have been a “Doodler” since my early school days.
 
 
I used to make sketches,drawings,writing alphabets and numbers in different styles,writing my own name in funny and fancy ways etc.
 
 
Hence the cute and appropriate name for my blog ! Don’t you agree ?
  
Today I am trying to write something on the subject : ”Doodle”.

 

  The following figure shows various types of doodles at random…

 

 

 

A doodle is a type of sketch, an unfocused drawing made while a person’s attention is otherwise occupied.
 
Doodles are simple drawings that can have concrete representational meaning or may just be abstract shapes.
 
Stereotypical examples of doodling are found in school notebooks, often in the margins, drawn by students daydreaming or losing interest during class.
 
Other common examples of doodling are produced during long telephone conversations if a pen and paper are available.
 
Popular kinds of doodles include cartoon versions of teachers or companions in a school, famous TV or comic characters, invented fictional beings, landscapes, geometric shapes, textures, banners with legends, and animations made by drawing a scene sequence in various pages of a book or notebook.

Etymology

The word doodle first appeared in the early 17th century to mean a fool or simpleton. German variants of the etymon include Dudeltopf, Dudentopf, Dudenkopf, Dude and Dödel. American English dude may be a derivation of doodle.
 
The meaning “fool, simpleton” is intended in the song title “Yankee Doodle”, originally sung by British colonial troops prior to the American Revolutionary War. This is also the origin of the early eighteenth century verb to doodle, meaning “to swindle or to make a fool of”. The modern meaning emerged in the 1930s either from this meaning or from the verb “to dawdle”, which since the seventeenth century has had the meaning of wasting time or being lazy.
 
In the movie Mr. Deeds Goes to Town, Mr. Deeds mentions that “doodle” was a word made up to describe scribblings to help a person think. According to the DVD audio commentary track, the word as used in this sense was invented by screenwriter Robert Riskin.
Effects on memory
According to a study published by Applied Cognitive Psychology, doodling helps a person’s memory significantly. The study was done by Professor Jackie Andrade, of the School of Psychology at the University of Plymouth.
 
Famous doodlers: In published compilations of their materials, numerous historical figures have left behind doodles :
 
Erasmus drew comical faces in the margins of his manuscripts.
John Keats drew flowers in his medical note-books during lectures.
Ralph Waldo Emerson, as a student at Harvard, decorated his composition books with somber, classical doodles, such as ornamental scrolls. In one place, he sketched a man whose feet have been bitten off by a great fish swimming nearby and added the caption, “My feet are gone. I am a fish. Yes, I am a fish!” In many other situations he commented that they helped with compositions.
Stanislaw Ulam the mathematician is another example: he discovered the Ulam spiral while doodling during an academic conference.
Those who are interested in knowing more details,can Google and see the following suggested topics as well :
 
Asemic writing
Automatic writing
Graphology
Oekaki
Scribble
Marginalia
Stream of consciousness writing
Stick Figure 
 
To see a really funny and an enlightening video titled “Suggestive Doodles” on youtube go to the following link :
 
 
Try creating your own unique doodles by using the tips given in the above video.
 
Here is a collection of some cute doodles !!
 
So, Doodle All The Way ……. ! 
 
E..N..J…O…Y..!

Category: Cartoons, Humour, Ideas, Nostalgia  | 2 Comments
From a cartoonist’s brush Author: Jatinder Pal Singh Broca Jan 03

I was posted in Bank’s office at Chandigarh for some years in early nineties. Our officer’s association had arranged a family get together on 2nd May 92 in which Mr.Sandeep Joshi, a well known cartoonist with The Tribune had been invited as a Chief Guest. An exhibition of some of his cartoons was also arranged in the hall where the function was held. I had the good fortune of interviewing Mr. Joshi and I had asked him some funny questions to which he had replied in a lighter vein. While he was fielding the questions, he had quietly drawn my caricature and had presented it to me at the end of the function, much to my delight. I confess that it bears a close resemblance to my profile, with a dash of his cartoonists license showing me as an enlightened guy (Ahem!!!):

Broca

Broca

I have preserved that valuable gift of Mr. Joshi till date and am sharing now with the readers of this blog. By the way, one of my questions was, “Why are there no lady cartoonists in India?”. I do not recall what his reply was and am searching for the answer till date. If any of you can really enlighten me, I shall be pleased.

Category: Cartoons, Humour, People  | 3 Comments
NOSTALGIA-V Author: Jatinder Pal Singh Broca Jan 12

NOSTALGIA-V

MARIO MIRANDA'S CARTOONS

World of Cartoons.

The word cartoon has various meanings, based on several very different forms of visual art and illustration. The term has evolved over time.The original meaning was in fine art, and there cartoon meant a preparatory drawing for a piece of art such as a painting or tapestry.The somewhat more modern meaning was that of humorous illustrations in magazines and newspapers. Even more recently there are now several contemporary meanings, including creative visual work for print media, for electronic media, and even animated films and animated digital media.When the word cartoon is applied to print media, it most often refers to a humorous single-panel drawing or gag cartoon, most of which have captions and do not use speech balloons. The word cartoon is not often used to refer to a comic strip.
( For basic info about cartoons visit:http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cartoon)
A cartoon brings a smile on your face,transports you back to a similar incident with which you were involved in the past,drives away your bad mood and often has a great therapeutic value.
Dennis The Menace,Bringing Up Father,Little Women,etc are some of my favourite cartoon characters and strips.
“You Said It” by R K Laxman,the daily cartoon, is also very popular.
However,Mario Miranda has been one of my favourite cartoonists.
(To read more about him see:http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mario_Miranda)

MARIO MIRANDA

( Those who wish to see a slide show of his cartoons on Goa,go to : http://www.rediff.com/travel/1999/jun/14mintro.htm)

He has been a regular contributor of cartoons in THE ECONOMIC TIMES.I have a huge collection of his cartoons cut out from old issues of The Economic Times.

There was a feature titled “The World Of Cartoons” in this newspaper on 13th December1981.I liked it and sent my opinion appreciating the same to the Editor.

The same was published in The ET Bombay,of Tuesday 5th January 1982 ( 26 years ago !) with some of its portions edited out-again due to space constraints !

Today,I reproduce it herebelow :

“THE WORLD OF CARTOONS”

Sir:

The above feature (ET Dec 13) was like an oasis in the desert of drab politics,dismal economy,depressing inflation et all.Mario Miranda deserves to be congratulated for his superb portrayal of so-called “drab world of Miss Fonseca”(as “Saro”puts it) by way of his cartoons. It is the first thing I look forin the left-hand corner of the first page.It is one’s cup of cheer and when you don’t publish it (you don’t even apologise or give reasons for not publishing it,however rare it may be) one feels let down.

The cartoons reveal very aptly many finer aspects of “Management” ( & Mis(s) management?) which is both an art (from Miss Fonseca’s point of view ) and a science ( from boss’view-point ).

I frankly don’t know what it is from Godbole’s view-point.I also agree with Col.Proudfoot (“I love her”) when he says he has that no doubt that there is an original Miss F,whom Mario uses as a model,since I have come across specimens like lazy wastrel Godbole and efficient ( Speciwomen ?) secretaries like Miss Fonseca.

Incidentally,doesn’t Miss F have a first name ? Or,the boss hasn’t succeeded in reaching the first name level yet with her? Mario,would you enlighten us ?

Mario’s cartoons prove that brevity is the soul of wit.Let’s have more of such features.

J.S.BROCA
Baroda,Dec 27

Note:
Since I had been a student of Management (having done P G Diploma In Business Management from Bhartiya Vidya Bhavan,Baroda in 1979) I had added a para after ‘Godbole’s view-point’,which went thus :   ( Could it be ‘Artful Science’ or should it be ‘Scientific Art’?) Herzberg’s “Motivation Theory” (Boss),”McGregor’s Theory X (Miss F) & Theory Y” ( Godbole) and ‘Channels & Methods of Communication’ (exchanges between boss and the beggar) ( I feel the beggar seems to be too intelligent for his uneducated upbringing !!) are a few basic concepts of ‘Management’,well illustrated through Mario’s cartoons.

However,this para was deleted from the printed version.One has to bow down to the decision of the worthy Editor,isn’t it ??

I am sure many of the readers will have their own favourite cartoons,cartoon characters and cartoon strips which they must be enjoying.In these days of TV and several specific channels solely devoted to animation films and cartoons on 24×7 basis,we cannot remain immuned from such enjoyable stress-busters like Tom and Jerry,The Simpsons,Hagar The Horrible etc.They make our lives worth living.Don’t they ? Care to share your views and experiences ?

Category: Cartoons  | 3 Comments