Marca Da Fabrica
Pratyusha and I had recently been to Kharagpur for Kshitij-07 – The annual Techno-Management fest of IIT Kharagpur. We were amongst the nineteen teams that made it to the final round of ‘Marca Da Fabrica’ – an Ad-Design competition. Although we returned home unrewarded, it was a very fine experience. The contest was split into two rounds – the first one being an online preliminary after which teams were filtered to participate in the final round, wherein the selected teams had to go to IIT Kharagpur to give a presentation.
Problem Statement for First Round
We had designed the following components for the first round:
Compulsory Parameters:
- Logo
- USP (Unique Selling Proposition)
- Tagline
Elective Parameters:
- Color Newspaper Ad (Full page and quarter page)
- Magazine Ad (Color and Black & White – A4)
- 1 billboard (Dimensions – 3 m by 4m)
All the above mentioned parameters had to be put in a PDF file whose size was not supposed to exceed 1.5 mb. Here is the file we made:
With exams lurking and loads of pressure, we could only manage to scurry through things hours before the deadline! Some of the advertisements we made were thought and executed in just minutes! But in the end, I think we gave it just about enough thought and effort to book a final round berth!
We got through! The piece of news came just a couple of days after our semester results had come. Both of us fared pretty well in our exams and confirmation that we made it to the final round of Marca Da Fabrica was icing on the cake. 2007 really gave us a headstart – it’s a truly wonderful feeling when things start swinging in your favour! But, we didn’t have time to celebrate yet – lots of work to be done for the final round. And the organisers of Kshitij definitely didn’t make it easier for us – they were contradicting their own rules and everything was ambiguous to say the least. Eventually things got better. (though we had to assume a few things which was the right thing to do, thankfully!) We somehow managed to wind things up just minutes before we left for Kharagpur.
Rules for Round 2
For the final round, the compulsory parameters were the same. We had to make 5 out of the given 7 elective parameters. We decided to stick with some of the ideas we used for making ads for the first round – in other words, we just had to edit parts of a few of the old ads. For the rest of the ads, we needed fresh ideas and we sure weren’t short of ideas!!
Without further ado, I present to you our whole package for the final round including the compulsory parameters and the ad campaign itself. Highlights of each parameter are also listed. Enjoy!
Compulsory Parameters:
- Logo:
- Simplicity
- Colors green and blue depict land and water respectively. Hence the concept of One World.
- USP:
“Blending simplicity with performance.”
- Simplicity = Driver friendliness
- Performance = Efficiency, Features, Quality.
- Aim is to make cars with a perfect blend of simplicity and performance.
- Tagline:
“One World. One Wheel.”
- One World – Globalization of the company
- One Wheel – Wheel refers to the company and hence one wheel emphasizes on the superiority of the firm on a global scale
- Anti-racism – “One World. One Wheel.” suggests the concept of a unified world. The company acts as a binder for various races.
Elective Parameters:
- Billboard Ad
- The color of a car does not affect it’s performance.
- Analogously, humans should not be discriminated against color or race as long as they perform well enough.
- Hence the line “Different Colors. Same Respect.”.
- Color Newspaper (Full Page) Ad
- Statistical data assumed.
- Driving the world – Global superiority.
- Driven by you – Customers’ hand in the company.
- The toy dummy pushing the car personifies people who run the company, which includes the company itself, it’s employees and the customers.
- Color Newspaper (Quarter Page) Ad
- The essence of this ad is ‘simplicity’
- A touch of humor to make it look more attractive and catchy.
- Dog is man’s best friend! Thus the ad imparts a sense of familiarity.
- Color Magazine Ad
- This ad demonstrates the pro-employee stand of the company.
- It focuses on female employees.
- Humor again gives the ad a lot of eye-candy.
- Black & White Magazine Ad
- Highlights the USP – Blending Simplicity with Performance.
- The complexity of the engine’s functionality is met with the simplicity of the car’s design and operation.
- Poster Ad
- Appeals to the masses to boycott malicious racist campaigns.
- Fictitious incidents have been mentioned.
- Black and White colors have been used for the background theme to give it an anti-racism flavour.
- Banner Ad
- Two forks and two sets of flares show blending. Hence the USP, blending simplicity with performance.
- Another way to look at the ad is – The forks represent simplicity and the flares represent performance. Again, the USP is highlighted.
- Video Ad
- HNM’s guide to pure bliss!
- Dream. Design. Drive.
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Well that’s about it! The print ads were made using Adobe Photoshop CS2. The software has amazing features and is very user friendly. Images for the ads were taken from google and flickr. The video ad was done using the ‘stop motion animation’ technique. It took one full day to shoot and edit. Editing was done using Windows Movie maker. The software is very simple and effective.
We didn’t win anything unfortunately, but nonetheless learnt a lot I’m sure. All in all, I thoroughly enjoyed working with Pratyusha and the trip to Kharagpur was a quite memorable one as well. A handful of anecdotes saved in my memory and a nice break from my mundane life. Hoping to do more stuff like this soon – What say prats? :)
Cheers people, and thanks for your patience to read this huge post! Please leave your lovely comments and err…not so lovely criticism. :P
Until next time, it’s adieu from me!
