Wasssupp Youngistan!!!!

Pepsi and their youngistan promotions. A few promotions that i happen to come across..

1. Youngistan one liners doing the rounds in the newspapers.. mostly next to some news item or the sports page.. where you give a youngistan world one liner comment on the mentioned news..small splash ads next to particular articles..
2. went to PVR 2 weeks back.. they had this branded standees saying Youngistan meri jaan put up and ofcource camera men waiting there with really dead looking chicks and guys who would be the interviewers.a set of college students doing the geting paid for a day kinda stuff.. they were trying to catch hold of people to stand infront of the branded standees and answer questions like who and what according to you is youngistan? and how would you define the youngistan spirit? (for starters youth today think that standing in front of the the camera for some promotion stuff is so uncool!!!anyways..) they managed to catch hold of some.. who very enthusiastically stood there infront of the camera giving their gyaan.. ok so they thought they were going to be on tv or something.. come interval.. and whuallllllllah.. you are on the big screen right there.. your 10 minutes of interval fame.. the four people caught on camera.. they are suddenly seen on screen.. a 1 minute capsule played on loop for the entire 10 minutes by the end of which everyone sitting in the theatre started hooting and using the F word and geting mighty irritated by it. Did pepsi think it would work?? Excess of anything is bad i believe and thats the reason i feel that the particular promo fell flat on their face.. it just created an irritation factor on everyones face and sheer embarrasement on the faces of the people who were there on the screen answering those silly questions because 1 minute fame is better than the loopy 10 minute fame in the said case :D
3. Pepsi and MTV WASSSUPPP.. i m not sure about the number of s's and p's.. in anycase.. i quiet like this idea.. so its got 2 ex roadies to become VJ's .. Aayushman and Bani.. True to the so called Youngistan Image.. and according to me its just a bunch of young people in age particulary.. a capsule show of 10 minutes everyday on MTV.. with defined different slots in it each of a minute or so.. talking of youth related issues or young achievers or some new age stuff.. or just plain simple reactions of young people on general news items from anything to politics to bollywood, hollywood et all.. its pacy, short and sweet and can be informative at times..i like the over all package.. something that for once was right in the youngistan land i feel.
4. Pepsizone - the Pepsi Youngistaan created online in association with Yahoo.. the home page opens on a town where you can see the below mentioned features - (and ofcourse the Youngistan anthem playing in the background which you are mostlikely to switch off like i did)

• MTV building maybe cuz they are promo partners
• Pizza hut - download pepsi youngistan card on your mobile for cool benefits at Pizza hut
• PVR - download screen savers of the Pepsi brand ambassadors namely shahrukh, ranbir and deepika.
• An i phone - cool youngistan tones to download there
• the canteen zone with some youngistan fundaa which one of us can give.. like the one i read said 'BE BINDAS'.. of the day and grafitti zone and a tv in the canteen where you can play the latest pepsi ad (who would want to watch that anyways?)
• Youngistaan pathshaala building where on clicking you can read the 10 commandments of youngistan
• Pepsi through the ages - stroll down memory lane - on clicking.. Pepsi goes Desi - all ads from 'Yehi hai right choice baby' to now made in india can be seen there..Pepsi imported - you can watch all the international pepsi ads here...Pepsi Unrealeased - never before seen pepsi commercials here.. frankly this was the only good part about the entire website..but even that takes forever to load.... but its fun to watch it nonetheless

Anthing else anyone notice?

Technology and entertainment

I have really admired offlate the marketing strategies that some of the big companies have owned in order to market their movies.. Yash Raj always comes to my mind first.. They go the whole hog to get the eyeballs popping..

Happened to come across Aamir Khan's Blog a few months back. Don't know any other actor who actually maintains a personal blog..but he does.. his posts are far and in between but he still manages to post them none the less.. mostly about what he is upto and always about his movies.. It seems this trend started from his Film Lagaan and has continued. Presently he talks about Taare Zameen Par to the the developments with his film shoot of Ghajjini..to his new hairstyle.. He even proposed the idea of meeting 10, 15 bloggers in his trip to Toronto if he had the time and asked people to leave their numbers and email ids.. though he didnt manage to but he says that he will try and manage it as often as possible while he is travelling different places.. He even chats on his website.. he gives a time when he is online and memebers can log in at that time and chat with him... he has over 1000 odd coments atleast on each of his posts and he even replied to some 10,15 of the people in one of his posts.. Its like dream come true for his fans am sure.. he becomes the most down to earth, humble actor who knows his stuff and therefore an even bigger fan base and numbers to watch his movies.. very subtle but nice way of advertising himself cuz i have realised that he keeps it strictly to work related topics and nothing personal..

Rani Mukherji, Shahrukh Khan, Amitabh Bacchan .. they all seemed to have gone the blog way at some point or the other to promote their films..Tv channels having blogs.. making things interactive.. and therefore moulding themselves according to viewer response eventually.. its all staged and finally to the taste of the public they are catering.. no more a risk but mostly what people want.. i have become a regular viewer of MTV Roadies 5.0.. infact watched it since Roadies 1.0.. Its an inane show.. but i think 5.0 has crossed all limits of surprising.. Raghu the EP of the show has become a master at creating the twists and turns which would just about keep eveyone hooked on to it.. was reading the sms that people have sent to Raghu flashing at the bottom of the screen during the repeats.. hating his moves on the show and how they hate what just happened in the episode.. Raghu sucks and all of that.. and just one msg flashin in the midst of it all saying msg from Raghu - "wait till the next episode". Another msg saying uncensored footage of Roadies stolen from the MTV office and uploaded on Youtube.. everyone under suspect.. i mean its all staged but it will all get people going at it at once..

Everyday there is some new way treaded upon and everytime it manages to surprise me:)