Hero Honda - silent good marketing

When you think of the top ads you don't think Hero Honda - but a closer look at the reel will tell you that they have indeed being doing some very good advertising. Look at the last few ads - Splendour, Passion Pro- they have taken the advertisement of the bike product to another level. With youth at the heart of all bikes, Hero Honda intelligently cuts the positioning for each of its offerings at a psycho graphic level.

Splendour is being positioned as the friendship bike - with a a campaign that smartly marries the sentiment of the idea with the functional proposition - so jitni door yaari jaaye, utni door gaadi jaye. Splendour NXG is the flanker for the Splendour range of bikes, so as such is positioned as an affordable bike, but the beauty of the advertisement is how it takes still the mileage idea but renders it in a way that makes the bike still seem aspirational and premium. Special mention to Arun Gopallan of Storytellers who made this ad with JWT, the brands agency. Passion Pro says ab sirf style bolega aiming to appeal to the more conscious and aware consumer. Again a film by Arun Gopallan. The only thing better that Hero Honda should possibly do is integrate better with social media - given that it as youth at its heart - an inexpensive way to get participation, word of mouth and some aggressive advertised loyalty. Think Axe, which manages to get so much of its target group so closely touched thanks to its splendid non tv campaigning.


Through these ads thought- there is a silent thread that holds the brand hero honda together, whether its the signature jingles or the retro color - slightly surreal feel of the advertising. the one thing missing though - is how the corporate brand campaign is not in the same zone, style or positioning as the individual ads - dhak dhak go, india go for e.g. Part of the problem perhaps being that its brands were split across agencies - with JWT, Draft FCB Ulka and Percept managing brands. Thats should all change with Law and Kenneth now being the brands agency.
Looking forward to some more good advertising.