Bang On!!

Al Ries, one of the most prominent marketing gurus, who along with Jack Trout coined the term ‘positioning’ as we use in marketing today wrote in one of his books on branding that a second brand can enter the market and gain share by staying far away from the leader in terms of mind space, or by taking an opposite positioning.

Perhaps ITC borrowed a leaf from his book when they were working out the positioning strategy for their packaged snack brand, Bingo!

While Lays was selling its American Sour Cream & Onion and Spanish Tomato flavors, Bingo! was positioned with its Indian flavors such as Tandoori Paneer, Tikka, Spice Paneer etc. We all know how the North Indian market (in fact, all of India except the South) loves all things Punjabi. And to appease the South Indian market, Bingo! had flavors such as Chatkila Nimbu Achaar, Achari Masti etc. In fact, Bingo! comes in 16 flavors to cater to the taste buds of different regions of India.

Bingo!’s advertising follows the AIDA model (Attention, Interest, Desire, Action). The clutter-breaking ads with their slapstick humor and irrelevant themes garnered enough eyeballs to create awareness of the product and generate an interest towards the product in the minds of consumers. The ads are simply insane & nonsensical to the point of being bizarre & utter crap. And that is why they are so funny!! This resulted in high product trials.

Take for instance the Glad Bangles ad with the Caucasian model complaining about her life being so pathetic that even her cat walked out on her!!

Or the one where the scientists at the Bingo Mad Labs issue a pregnancy certificate after feeding you Bingo! Mad Angles. The procedure, the ad claims, to test whether you are pregnant is fast, simple and painless. The scientists will offer you Bingo Achaari Masti, and if you are driven crazy by the tangy "achaari" taste of the snack & chase the scientists for more, then congratulations you have tested positive!!

Or the one where a guy says he has tried his hands at making a combination of his lazy brother Jignesh & a toaster!!! Posing for a family poster, Jignesh jumps up in the air even before the photographer could click. In another shot, his girlfriend gets the shock of her life as he springs up from his motorcycle leaving her alone on the running vehicle. These incidents lead the guy to conclude that unlike Bingo’s Mad Angles combination, his combination was a failure.

There are many other attention-grabbing Bingo! ads such as the Vango Pango ad etc. but what's interesting is the fact that Lays uses a brand ambassador approach with mass appeal celebrities such as Saif Ali Khan, Juhi Chawla & M S Dhoni whereas Bingo still doesn't have an ambassador. Finding one that can match its image would be quite a task!!