Friday, September 5, 2014

Expensive Axe in the foot: Ranveer Singh for Maruti Suzuki Ciaz!

Ranveer Singh endorses the new Maruti Suzuki Ciaz 








'ROLL OUT THE RED CARPET, GUYS. Ciaz COMING SOON' says the new print ad of the recently launched sedan by Maruti Suzuki. Basically a teaser ad, the creative shows the rear of the new car accompanied with bollywood star Ranveer Singh dressed in a sharp suit. However, there was something about the advertisement that was odd as the picture didn't seem natural. Perhaps, it is little difficult to digest the new avatar of Ranveer Singh, who otherwise a very energetic, jovial, and an adventurous fellow, looks so suffocated and all tied up in a business suit that he even cant smile. 


Few months back Ranveer Singh was signed up for endorsing a condom brand where he managed to grab eye balls for himself as well as the brand. The campaign was well received and Ranveer seemed natural and effortless. When a celebrity campaign is successful, not only it creates mileage for the brand, it also helps in building reputation for the celebrity involved. 

Why does the same Ranveer Singh seems to be struggling in a lesser complex product? 

For a C-segment Sedan, positioned as Executive Class luxury car, the marketing team at Maruti may have wanted to target young corporate executives who may well be buying the first sedan of their life. The target audience would also obviously include businessmen who are looking for class and luxury but would also vouch for dependability of the Maruti Suzuki brand. In this case, Ranveer Singh doesn't seem to match the attributes of the product and this mismatch is glaringly visible in the ad which is upsetting the whole idea for the audience. It raises curiosity on why Ranveer was chosen for this campaign; as virtually he is not the obvious match; he cannot come cheap; he even was spotted promoting Tata Zest a few months back (please refer pic). It only points at one thing: a mess up by the marketing team at Maruti Suzuki and let us hope that it doesn't mars the chances of Ciaz. We can only wish the very best for this campaign as Maruti Suzuki has already faced challenge in overcoming its brand image for selling premium models (Grand Vitara, Kizashi and SX4) in the past.