The Big Red Couch Wars

Really funny things happen when you throw in big corporates, innovative ideas and a lot of competition. Like this whole ad war that started around the big red couch. Well, the story goes as follows.Airtel in a bid to spice up their launch of digital television service, started a series of teasers, without giving  a hint to what it was about. Just a red couch and the line "See you at home" was said by a cowboy, an African Zulu tribesman, a rock band , cartoons resembling Timon from the Lion King.... and many others. But no one had much of a clue as to what it was or which company it belonged to. Though probably someone could connect it to a television based product or home delivered pizzas. Anyway, the build up continued...

So Reliance's digital TV service - BIG TV - decided to crash in on Airtel's party by putting up their own promotional advertisement with the big red couch. To suggest as if the whole build up was for their BIG TV. How they came to know ofAirtel's plans or was it just a coincidence is still unsure. But the teaser was to suggest that it was something new that was being launched. BIG TV was already in the market for quite a while. Then why were they trying to "relaunch" it..?

Thus ambushing Airtel big time. And then they had to hurriedly launch their own advertisement, which had a lot of fan fare and celebrities in it and of course the red couch too.Airtel was soon crying fowl of BIG TV's tactics calling it unfair and unethical, and BIG came out with their own justifications. Anyway, I suppose now the red couch is not there in BIGTV's ads. Just the ads with the kung-fu moustache guy, the screaming fat lady and the sneezing soldier. As for Airtel, it airs the red couch ad, loaded with celebrities and is quite long too. But surely the debate spruced up the popularity of both the giants...!

Well, as for the red couch war, its over for now, but our sky will be fought over for more such digital TV signals and our roof tops crowded with more dishes, in the time to come. And soon more and more people will be confining themselves to big couches, preferring TV over their social life. Preferring Reality shows than reality itself. Preferring watching cartoons rather than playing. Preferring SUN TV ( Regional Tamil channel ) than sun light... etc etc. Ahem... You get the picture. Yes, the couch is definitely something to fight aggressively for, by these big companies. Each providing a whole array of choice to the viewer and a host of value added features. No matter who the winner is, the loser will always be the poor couch potato.

Comments

Visu said…
BIG sucks big time; no idea about the Airtel though(Apparently, the same). Hell with it...!

All hail "Arasu cable TV" ..!
October 17, 2008 12:11 PM
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