By Anil Thakraney

Maha thakela campaign from eBay. Both the communication strategy and the creative suck. There is a series of TVCs on air, essentially selling best deals and safe shopping. Isn’t that an obvious strategy for an online marketing portal? Flipkart and others have already been making the same promise. So there’s nothing new here.

Given that the strategy is weak, it’s now left to the execution to save the show. And this one’s a disaster. Basically the ads consist of boring discussions between the believers and the cynics. Someone wants the latest phone but wants the price to drop. Another one isn’t sure if it’s a good idea to purchase shoes online. And you can easily predict the rest.

 

This is really boring stuff. The conversations are dull and unengaging, the treatment is the same old problem/solution approach, and it’s spelt out literally. With no creative spark, these ads, I’m afraid, have zero chance of being noticed. Especially given the pre-Diwali clutter on television. Flipkart has the ditto same approach, but that one single creative leap, of kids behaving like adults, helps them smash the clutter through cute advertising. eBay hasn’t taken any leap, so their ads will wither away.

To be fair to the ad agency, I strongly suspect the ultra safe-playing client is at fault here. Neither have they come up with a refreshing brief, nor have they allowed their agency to experiment. Net result? Well, check the rating.

Rating: (On a scale of 1-5): 0. Poor strategy. Poor creative.