Uncle Lone-Lee is a strange man. He doesn’t talk to anyone and doesn’t really take much help from people around him. It keeps you wondering why this old man won’t hitch a ride, why he will run around up and down and why he keeps on picking up really heavy gardening pots.

No one truly understands Uncle Lee – naming him as stubborn and gaining a lot of sympathy from the community around him. Standard Chartered Bank brought home a message that kept us hooked to understand what Uncle Lee was truly up to.

This campaign really brings home how it feels to have a full home – your family visiting you during Chinese New Year. Uncle Lee was actually getting fit and rehearsing day by day, preparing for the joy he would feel to meet his grandkids, cycle with them and burst firecrackers together.

Chinese New Year is a time to be with family – to share love and joy together. Standard Chartered Bank really captured this so deeply with the local colour, lingo and context that made a British bank sound and be more Malaysian. Today, banks need to be even more localised as local banks and Fintech become more agile and relevant in today’s context.

Everyone wants to bank with a bank they trust, who they believe is looking out for them and a bank that is there for good. The campaign follows Uncle Lee over the years and you can’t help but feel more connected to him! He surely reminds me of my grandfather who loved hugging us and playing with us. This campaign brought a huge smile to my face during this festive season.

I hope I get to hang out with Uncle Lee soon :) Happy CNY! Happy Tet! And Gong Xi Fa Cai! May the year of the rabbit bring you lots of good health and prosperity.

I think there are different categories of ads – humorous ads, feature orientated ads, tech innovation ads and celebrity ads.

Spotify just aced a category of ads that I believe is brand on point, product on point, demographic on point and relevance on point and with localised tunes that are on point too!

The work done with Leo Burnett & Spotify puts the word’s daily pains into amusing tunes. Be it while watching your mother shop for sarees, sitting in a traffic jam or when news anchors are fighting and screaming over breaking news.

It also contextualises use cases for when music is consumed – not just as a one off indulgence but as a habit forming behaviour across multiple scenarios.

I have immense brand love for Spotify. I have been a loyal Spotify user for years and have really seen their music content, curation and now advertising grow and dominate the music streaming space.

I will have to echo the sentiment of the campaign – SpotifyOnTohMazzaOn (If Spotify is on, then the fun is on!)

As the world moves towards short form video content that tries to dominate our very minuscule attention span, there are brands that are continuing to tell stories through a craft that is extremely precious.

“The fine art of great storytelling in advertising” continues to live on with such thoughtful messaging and emotions. This ad tells the story of a young girl, Meera who is going to her new home with her adopted parents. I can’t imagine how over-whelming the experience would be of moving countries, families and your entire life.

With the myriad of these changes, the only comforting thing is the aroma of familiar food. In a beautifully told story, Shan Masala (a Pakistani brand that we all love) becomes the catalyst to unite a new family together, making it whole again.

Influencer Marketing is one of the trendiest topics in the Industry today. But how do you actually drive effective outcomes by rapidly identifying your biggest advocates? How do you not dole out thousands of dollars to people with a million fans who in reality don’t care for your brand?

Wingstop is a popular chicken wings joint across the globe and to be honest, one of our favourite chicken wing joints. (Have you checked our the Indonesian kecap manis flavor? Yumm!!)

The brand innovated in terms of their marketing model and launched wearable billboards! Without the subtle effects, the hoodie clearly says: “This is an ad for Wingstop”.

Wingstop converted their loyal customer base (me included) to advocates that drove so many impressions and brand love. They put 1000 pieces of these hoodies up for grab online and even transferred $10 for people who post a picture with it. Now you would wonder- Why would I wear an ad and walk around the mall? Well, let me tell you – the hoodies were all taken in 3 hours! One of them even wore it to a basketball game that was on national television (Did I hear free media? Isn’t that the marketer’s ultimate dream?)

Overall, I think this is a brilliant campaign to bring together loyal fans to share their love for the brand in more ways than one! It’s clear for them, the Wings-don’t-stop! 🦸🏻‍♀️

There is an industry that has tremendous power to shape the hearts and minds of millions of people. However, there is so much more that must be done when it comes to enabling diversity and Inclusion. This industry needs a shake up and must move forward.

The industry is our favourite: Advertising.

Gone are the days where brands simply say “We are simply representing what customers want or who they want to be”. Tall, White, Fair, Thin: That is what most advertising still represents in most industries. It skews our view to we should look like or who we will be.

This has created an unending loop of an aspiration gap – aspiring to be that perfect “tall, white, fair, thin” woman that will never be completed and hence so many industries thrive just leaching off those insecurities.

More needs to be done to fulfil advertising diversity and inclusion goals. More needs to be done to measure this impact as well.

Unilever in January pledged to feature more diverse groups in its advertising, not only in front of the camera, but also with the agencies and producers it hires. More brands are slowly coming forward.

I love the “It’s on Us” Campaign because Dove is taking an active route to not just solve for themselves but for the wider industry. And more importantly, the T&C clearly states that the women in these advertising campaigns should be represented for who they truly are.

This is a brilliant move by Dove in line with their brand messaging that represents “Real Women and Real Beauty”. Infact I am a dove bird too – using their moisturising shower gel every single day. As a consumer, I will continue to support them and advocate for more women representation in our advertising industry.

International Women’s Day (8th March) is a celebration of all the incredible women in our lives. It is also a day in the year when we all need to have a much more deliberate and active conversation about gender equality. And yes, until the playing field is completely evened out, I will continue to be an advocate for women’s rights and for women to break the mould that so many of us are socially conditioned to be in.

In my opinion, The cooking conversation or dividing household chores is such an over-rated one. I feel a lot of us in our generation have (thankfully so) moved past that. But there is a deep topic that isn’t really well explored – Financial Responsibility. We are not just talking about pay gaps, but also the way a woman is conditioned to “not be the finance person” – even when it comes to finances that affect her life.

Not being in control of your finances is almost like not having control of the accelerator that runs your own car.

In India, Paytm – the popular payment platform released a video of a social experiment conducted by them that clearly highlights the gap in financial literacy between men and women. 30 men and women of diverse backgrounds and age categories were brought into a huge room together taking a step forward or backward depending on the experiences they have had.

While at first, the questions seem fun (Cooking, video games, cycling), as soon as the conversation pivots to finances, most women were only taking steps behind.

“Do you know the difference between a mutual fund and SIP?”

“Have you bought insurance policies unassisted?”

“Do you file your own income tax returns?”

These questions were so hard hitting and brought home a key point – It’s not just differences in interest in finance between men and women, the issue is so much deeper and so much more systematic. In India, women aren’t taught or encouraged to “be the finance person”. Even when it comes to investments or insurance policies that affect a woman’s future directly, the decisions are still always taken by the male figures in the house (Fathers, Brother, Husbands).

I believe that we live in a generation where women need to take more control about their financial future. After-all, aren’t women equally capable to understand markets and read contracts?

“It is time to separate finance and gender”. Let’s work together for a more financially equal future, too.

You don’t have to be Mr. Wolf of Wallstreet to have heard of Robinhood. It’s the financial trading app that has got so many eyebrows raised as Gamestop went into a frenzy the past few weeks.

The app that makes trading stocks easy and for everyone is here at the greatest of all advertising playgrounds – The Superbowl Commercials.

Compared to the dry and boring financial ads that make you want to snooze into an nothingness, Robinhood , the Fintech company of the future is sharing with the world how investing is not just for the Wall Street suit&ties, but for everybody.

I personally love the idea of democratising investments. Of-course financial literacy is the module of the generation that we all need to take in some form or the other (I took the Chartered Financial Analyst Level 1 for example). But assuming we all have a good baseline, apps like Robinhood really simplify your life and give an “in” into the markets without the multi-screen candle stick charts of the Bloomberg terminal.

Most of all, it gives people the freedom to have exposure to the financial markets in a really easy and accessible mobile first way. Although we don’t exactly know how Robinhood’s destiny will pan out in the near future but I must say that – FinTech is the new kid on the block playing David vs Goliath. And boy, might I say atleast in the advertising playground, with lifestyle creatives like these, David is sure as hell in the lead.

Re-emergence from the dead post: It’s been such an intense time adjusting to working from home in this pandemic. Phew! What a year 2020 has been. Pretty crazayyyy. 👀

Mooketing is back on the grid with the most relatable ad of the year : “The whole working from home thing”

The apple work from home ad takes you through a reality that a lot of us will smile at – Managing the borderless work / life from the work from home “thing”.

Apple takes you on a journey to what it takes to get to a client presentation and all the tools that Apple seamlessly provides without talking about specs or benefits. Apple is one of my favorite brands because it just integrate into your life so easily and becomes part of your body. (Infact, my sister calls her iphone an extension of her arm. HAHA)

Apple is not pushing a product like the Iwatch or the Ipad. Apple is building an integrated lifestyle. Once you have one Apple product, the rest of the Universe starts hypnotising you into the holistic experience. And this ad in particular shows you how each of their products is leveraged to make a seemingly crazy work experience come together.

PS: This post is best served with a shot of one more virtual brainstorming meeting. Cheers! 👯

#Delete Uber was a movement not so long ago (2017) where people in the thousands deleted the app after a series of incidents fundamentally related to a travel ban by the current US administration. (https://www.businessinsider.com/uber-deleteuber-protest-hundreds-of-thousands-quit-app-2019-4)

It was a turbulent time for the company, and having worked there at the time, I can vouch for the fact that Twitter and Facebook was buzzing with the #deleteUber hashtag. (And so were our anxiety levels)

Uber took a bold step to redefine the painful past of its history by reimagining #deleteUber in context of the conversation about inclusion and systematic racism.

“If you tolerate racism, delete Uber”.

I believe that it is bold to go back to the scars of your past and re-look it in another light. Having said that, I believe that Uber needs to do more to actually play a more significant role in the tangible outcomes for the  “Black Lives Matter Movement”.

Being a part of the conversation and echoing your voice in one sentence is simply not going to make the cut anymore. I hope that along with this campaign Uber pledges more support and financial commitment to the cause, without which it just would seem like a hopeless attempt to be “a part of a trending conversation” without proof of believing in the core of the movement.

There is a lot to be done in terms of racial equality in the world and I hope brands take leads and bounds to not just be part of a conversation but support the movement at a much deeper level along with the right campaigning and messaging.

Jordan vs Newton

Jordan: 1 Newton: 0

Air Jordans are truly defying the rules of gravity, by bouncing you up into the sky.

These sneakers got nothing on 9.8 m/s²

“Jagao Jagao Nescafe Pilao” : Wake Wake up, make me drink Nescafe.

Nescafe has always stood for the one solution to wake you up, sometimes even more effectively than your loud, head bursting, blood sucking alarm clock.

In this ad – the two worlds of wakefulness integrates into the brand colours of Nescafe.

Wake up. Start up. Turn on that ignition.

Get Going, Get Moving, Get Shaking, Get Nescafe-ing.

Hinge is a dating app that want’s to be on your phone, only to be deleted sooner than we know it.

“Designed to be deleted” – Find your one love and get rid of the dating app.

xoxo

Hi Audi,

You have gone Electric. But moreover, Electric has gone Audi.

I truly love the power button at the end. We’re getting electric in 2020 together, baby.

Love,

A fan of your marketing campaigns.

Nike addresses the issue of  racism in the United States in a thought provoking statement.

Don’t pretend that America doesn’t have a problem. We all need to be a part of the change.

For a brand that has always stood up for ‘Just do it’, took a step back, played on they brand statement and spun it around to stand for ‘Don’t do it’.

The world has come to a stand still. And somewhere I wonder if we have built more apathy or empathy? Has the world come closer together or has it fallen away?

Do we care about the same problems that existed before the pandemic? The homeless are still homeless with much less care than ever before.

Contextualising this to the world today, the most hard hitting statement hits you at the core when you read “If I could stay at home, I would”.

Those Instagram stickers that say “Stay home” for some people truly means “No home”.

Winter is coming. But, is clean air coming?

Well, that change can only come in the future if we start now.  Let’s play the long game here. If we demand a change now, we can see a change in 10 years from now.

The graphics below shows the dire impact of our current activities on the environment. And for all the non-believers yes, there is a direct impact of our actions today into the future tomorrow.

Let’s venture into the alternate reality of our future. A future where we can breathe clean air and without forest fires and melted ice caps.

When McDonald’s decided to shut shop until the beginning of may in Singapore due to the circuit breaker initiatives.

Pizza hut stepped up to show love to McDonalds in a well hearted post with 2 pizza slices.  In the fast food business, brands have historically gone head on head with each other with cut throat, aggressive advertising messaging.

Although we are all social distancing, some brands have yet again shown that in some ways, the world has come closer together.

Take care, ya’ll.

Off road, in house!

Jeep used their iconic grill to depict how now is the time to keep your Jeep parked in the garage.

The best view for these days is in house.

As governments, celebrities and influencers make strong statements about the importance of social distancing, brands are speaking up too.

Coca-Cola, a brand that has much chanted the name of being united together since it’s early brand inception days has now come out strong to put spaces in its own logo to land a singular message – ‘Staying apart is the best way to stay united’

Distance can be a wonderful thing too.

Let’s call it for what it is: We all have those “I can’t be bothered cooking especially because of that cruel dish-cleaning-phobia”. Everytime you get those lazy feels, you want to press a button and get some grub – Some fries and some bergs.

The good thing is that McDonalds saves you from doing those hellish dishes – especially on days when you want to wear your jammies, watch a trashy show on Netflix and munch on those delicious crispy fries.

McDonalds came up with a creative that will genuinely strike a cord with that dish-cleaning-phobia. By using dirty dishes as the most popular McDonalds menu items, the message was loud and clear.

Every once in a while, you can treat yourself to skipping those dishes.

McDonald’s re-emphasised their 24 hours drive thru in ways that made it so clear that even the night sky can’t come between you and the the Big Mac.

By playing with lights on billboards and cars, and showcasing the dark side of the moon with the light of the sesame bun, it’s magic to see the yellow of the McDonalds shine through so much advertising clutter to make a point, straight to your craving gut.

Ronald would sure be proud. Thanks big R for being in our lives, especially late at night when the world’s restaurants bail on us.

Sometimes we look at our lives around us and wonder, how did we even do this before? The minute the internet goes down, Google maps is unavailable or you can’t order a taxi on your phone, you feel so crippled. It’s almost this unimaginable pain to wonder what life would be like pre-tech-necessities. (Quote: Dark Necessities by Red Hot Chili Peppers).

Alexa had an amazing, funny and dramatic take on how failed Alex-versions were before Alexa actually came along. Without really placing the product or benefits in your face, you knew it. It was amusing to see a bird being sent with a letter only to be eaten by an Eagle and then a dragon. Such was life.

Also, let’s just give +1 for Ellen and Portia together doing everyday things together. Alexa, play my favorite song. Alexa, tell me a joke :)

2020. You don’t know my kind. Dark Necessities are part of my design.

What would have the world been with more efficient sharing?

Maybe better, Maybe worse.

Would we create more?

Maybe. Maybe not.

Would it be more perfect?

Can’t say.

We Transfer did give the concept a jab though. If Steve Wozniak and Jobs go together and sent files to each other, or even still Lennon and Mc Cartney to iterate on their craft further…

Who knows? Maybe we would have had many more ‘Hey Jude’s’ or an I-watch much ahead of it’s time.

Or maybe we could just not create hypotheticals and ‘Let it be’.

How can you not remember the sound of this?

Gosh, I miss glass bottles. The thrill of holding them in the shape of your hand. You can literally #tastethefeeling

Those bubbles are happiness. Any health freak can say anything they want – but the marginal utility and pleasure of a cold sip of Coke on a hot day is unprecedented.

So, open that bottle with the click of the sip of life.

The hints are there.

The signs are there.

You just need to take the extra step to understand it.

This series of communications is focused on highlighting what the true story is.

Hint: Piece together the words in red to understand what really happened. Read between the lines. Read between the white lies to see the red pain she is going through.

I think  lately I am getting obsessed with smart, witty eye catching static creatives.  And they don’t necessarily need to be print on a newspaper or magazine, a smart piece of content works just as beautifully on social platforms too.

I literally feel desperate to scroll through my feed to find one witty piece of humor on an ad that generally makes me day (Umm, yeah – that’s me).

But my love for Beer and Ketchup (not necessarily had together) brought me to love this statement-worthy-print-it-for-sure creative.

PS: That potato wedge on the Heinz bottle is equivalent to the lemon on a good, cold Corona.

As they say, Eat Responsibly.

Cheers.

“Put child obesity in offline mode” – This campaign from Brazil uses emojis to convey what obesity could look like for children today – especially if they are overarmed with cell phones.

Let the kids play (In the park).

Super bold statement by Volvo.

Using recyclable plastic in Volvo cars by 2025. Rubbish is here. And Rubbish is here to stay.

The future of the world seems dark if we don’t make the effort to make our consumption more sustainable.

I specifically love the jarring work that WWF did with everyday screens we see and editing it to a strong, shocking message.

“Preparing to Delete” – 1000 years remaining :(

Disclaimer: PG: Parental guidance suggested – Some material may not be suitable for children.

Exception Clause: Unless you are planning to have WIP children 

Here is a crazy print ad: The one where you peed on it. HAHAA.

IKEA has been extremely bold in the recent times with their advertising. And no matter if I believe this is a great ad or not, I will give a standing ovation to the courage this would have taken for one crazy team who brought this to life. Crazy is my favourite personality trait.

Without revealing much, I’d say –  You should watch this pure output of creativity and genius with a big doze of crazy:

Japanese advertising just amazes me with the creativity, exaggeration and sense of humour.

This is a throw back to one of the craziest and most innovative advertising campaigns that ever existed. The one crazy no-blinking TV reality show.

All extreme scenarios were managed without blinking – including washing your face, kissing and feeling a balloon burst next to your eyes.

But one thing, just one thing was such an impulse that couldn’t be controlled. The satisfaction of eating Carre de Chocolate.

It reminds me of the long gummy ad (which by the way I bought literally after seeing the ad). So creative, extreme and funny.

I’m not sure if you blinked, but giggle you shall.

It’s more fun in the Philippines! :)

That’s been the Department of Tourism’s Slogan that has always stuck like the way superglue sticks to your hands.

But this time, they took the fun one level up with their new high paced campaign: “Eats. More Fun in the Philippines”

I loved the honesty and the playfulness with emotions and food, together.  My favourite, coming straight from the heart that lives within my stomach was – “Sometimes we just invent reasons to eat” Haha. #truestory

Also, can we take a moment to appreciate the star of the show – a giant dancing bee? Oh man, Spaghetti with sweet sauce didn’t exist in my life until Jollibee brought an unprecedented joy in my life.

Food connects us all. Travel connects us all. And the Department of Tourism connected everything. All in the Philippines.

There is nothing more Pinoy that chicken made with joy. Ace 100. Loved it!

P&G just keeps outdoing itself, every single time.

There are so many issues that the world is plagued with that need our attention. And we need a stronger, louder voice to have that “talk”. Inclusion topics especially around discrimination, unconscious bias and racism is a sensitive line that many brands are afraid to tread. But these topics need more voices, louder voices and consistent voices.

I am so proud of being associated with marketing – Marketing in the past sometimes had a connotation that you would “trick people to sell things”. Well, maybe – maybe not. But for most part of it, not today (Overlay Arya Stark’s voice from Game of Thrones). I believe that today Marketing stands for something bigger, something larger. The real question we need to ask ourselves is – “What are the values that your brand stands for? What are the causes that you truly care about? Whose voice are you going to represent?”

“The Look” is a recent spot by P&G that powerfully demonstrates the “looks” a black man faces on a day to day basis. There are literally no words said in the commercial, just a series of looks. Say nothing, feel everything.

This campaign is a sequel to “The talk” – short dialogues shared by a black mom with her kids. The talk gives you just as many goosebumps as “The Look” in a deeply thought provoking manner.

Groundbreaking.

“The Look” | 2019

“The Talk” | 2018

“Look for the bare necessities,
The simple bare necessities,
Forget about your worries and your strife” 

Evian makes babies cute. Period.

I swear, I just want to cuddle those little mushes of joy! I literally look forward to Evian commercials to see the jamming, rock and rollin’, tunes these cuddles are swinging to lately.

Evian has been so consistent in their brand messaging – “Live Younger” and these animated babies are always brining joy to everyone’s lives. I’m a 100% sure that even when I am 65, I’ll be rolling to Bare Necessities on the streets like this too.  (Don’t miss the rap).

No f*cks given. Hell yeah.

Apple worked with TBWA and Media Arts Lab to create magic.

Calling this piece just an advertising campaign wouldn’t do justice to what this spot really is – An incredible work of art.

“Bounce” explores a simple premise – how you feel when you have your AirPods on. You are literally just bouncing off streets and walls, in a rhythm that synchronises with the soul of the universe.

Apple’s core in all aspects including it’s product, design and marketing has revolved around the principles of simplicity.

“Bounce” is a brilliant execution of a simple idea and can literally get everyone to want to jump in joy watching this. Don’t miss how the protagonist bounces off the walls to the top of the building – I recently watched SpiderMan (Far from home) and the resemblance of superpowers is uncanny.

Well, I might not have spidey webs, but I sure as hell can get em’ AirPods.

“Our way is love”

Burger King is one of my favourite brands that always seems to be re-writing the books in terms of what marketing in today’s world really is. It’s not selling, it is really standing up for something, fearlessly.

Burger King turned a whooper to ashes and made a diamond out of it. In a touching heart warming story between 2 men (Dima and Alvar) who got an opportunity to get married in Germany, Burger King took a strong position on LGBTQI rights.

The evolution of brands started with logos, USPs, Identities, purpose and as the world we live in get’s more divided – has evolved into really taking a stand for what brands believe in. (Think about it – It’s a big shift from the 4P’s that Marketing really started from).

I’m glad that more and more brands are really championing their position on certain issues. Haters going to hate, but I strongly believe that “Love is Love”. And nobody can take that away from anyone.

Transportation needs to be way more inclusive than what it is today. And although we are a long way away, Grab in Indonesia definitely took the first step to make transport safe and reliable for differently abled people.

Grab and Rexona partnered together for a holistic initiative around “Movement for Movement”. Several initiatives were rolled out including a dedicated fleet of cars, trained driver parters and a voice activated mobility assistant (designed by Rexona).

Through the “Gerak” mobile app, users would be able to speak or chat with it in order to find the nearest places that are disabled-friendly. Users could also book a special GrabGerak vehicle to their destination.

Many people question the long term implications of such activities but I believe that every positive step in the right direction is a positive change. And that a single light bulb can light up an entire city. The onus is on all of us to be true activists of inclusion related topics for everyone in all aspects of life – because really, this world can only be better, together.

Fathers are our rocks. They have been pillars of support through time – there for us in moments that count, teaching us, guiding us and sometimes letting us make our own mistakes.

My has been such a huge cheerleader in my life and for this I’ll forever be thankful. Amazon, this Father’s day built an amazing campaign that urges everyone to deliver love to dads. Delivering love for moments that matter, no matter how small – from teaching us how to ride a bicycle, to holding us during our first swim.

Happy Father’s Day.

What’s 4pm without a Snickers?

And in that case, what is an in flight meal without Snickers? Always hungry on a flight? Well, you have a cure.

Snickers partnered with one of China’s biggest domestic carriers, China Eastern Airlines, to develop a hunger-free flight – Snickers Air.

Re-creating your favorite shows through Ikea furniture is just BOMB.

Check out my favorites:

Stranger Things –

Friends –