As I See It : Creativity Vs Extravaganza

Frankly I was shocked to see today's ( 30/04/09) Hindu Business Line. The front cover page was just a blank white sheet with the Business Line Masthead. A closer look reveals a two figures at the middle of the sheet with a "turn overleaf " message below.

In the middle it was written 2009 crore (2007-08) --- 3007 crore (2008-09)netprofit

Turning overleaf revealed that the ad was for Bank of India which announced its annual results. The results' details were published in the full innercover page advertisement.

The result is pretty impressive - a net profit growth of 50%.
But the Ad is not ....

White spaces are good... but too much white space shows that there is a hole in the pocket.

This is a time where every penny is precious. Whether it is a bank which is making huge profits or a business which is trying hard to survive. Here we see a full page wasted just like that with no purpose whatsoever.

There is no big idea . Remember it is not a brand building ad. It is an ordinary process for publishing annual results. That is why such a spending is nothing but a sheer waste of valuable marketing money.

There are many ways of telling the public about this stellar results. Let the top management visit all channels and give interviews, let the PR department make this result come in the front page of all newspapers. That is how such results should be marketed not by blasting money publishing white spaces in the front cover.

I had worked in media and I know how much such an ad costs. Definitely this is not the time for such lavishness. Every Paise counts.

John Wanamaker once said "Half the money I spend on Advertising is wasted;the trouble is I don't know which half ".