A couple of days back, I came across perhaps, one of the most interesting media innovations in recent times. I happened to tune into Radio Mirchi and its famous RJ Jeeturaj proclaimed that there will be no ad aired on Radio Mirchi all day, thanks to the launch of the new Mango Slice beverage. Why? What’s the connection? The proposition of Mango Slice is pure pleasure and that’s what they wanted to give the listeners of Radio Mirchi all day long – the pure pleasure of listening to only songs rather than radio commercials. So much so, that Mango Slice was itself not airing its ads on the channel. Only its jingle of the famous Katrina Kaif commercial, ‘Rasiya Aa Jaa’ was mixed well with the Radio Mirchi jingle. Outstanding!
While, Vodafone did something similar by blocking inventory on all channels for its ads on the day Hutch was being re-christened to Vodafone, this was different. Slice actually used the irritating factor of commercials to its advantage, by not only blocking all commercials but also not airing its own commercials, thereby making listeners feel obligated to them. This is what I call a perfect ‘win-win-win’ media innovation. The channel benefits (as I am sure that they would have been paid a bomb for this), the listeners were also benefited since they got to listen to only songs all day and the brand is likely to benefit the most as consumers like me are not likely to forget the tagline of Mango Slice for a long time – pure pleasure.
However, from an advertiser’s perspective, this could be the start of a new dangerous trend. This innovation, to my mind, is the first acknowledgement by a brand that it believes that ads irritate consumers. If others join the bandwagon by aping this innovation, this will only add to the movement against ads. And given that most media vehicles in the country have business models revolving around advertising revenues, this could be a concern. But for now, we have a clear winner. Here’s to the Pepsi Team for having the brains to pull this off! It’s surely been ‘Pure Pleasure’.
