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Competition works. As an adrenalizer. But has Alpenliebe's lollipop advertising really had any? India's favourite ad of recent times, according to a sample survey published in the latest print edition of Business Today, is an ad for --- surprise, surprise --- a lollipop brand from Perfetti. Alpenliebe is the brand, and if that's too much of a mouthful, especially if you're around three and in critical need of a sugary pacifier to replace the security of your thumb, try 'lagey raho' ('keep at it' in Hindi) as a sound mnemonic. It works. It's also why the TV commercial works. It's all (okay, almost all) in the punchline: 'lagey raho'. Lollipops, of course, work too---at least when aimed specifically at the intended target group. Think of the need they satisfy. The best part of infancy is that nobody bothers reasoning with you. When it's a nipple you gotta have, it's a nipple you gotta have. That's it. Trouble begins after the 'tantrum two' phase, when your gurgles start sending ma and pa into whoops of joy, and you start figuring things out---and ma and pa undertake their first joint betrayal. They conspire to keep your thumb out of your mouth with a carrot-and-stick strategy. They reason, cajole, threaten... ... and then discover the power of lollipops. It is an economically savvy strategy, at first glance. Dealing with cavities is a whole lot cheaper than dealing with expensive orthodontic misalignments that extended years of thumb-sucking can result in. 'Lagey raho' suddenly seems more like a big relief than an invitation to the dentist. Comic relief might be more like it, actually. For the Alpenliebe commercial is a clutter-buster because it features a wizened old man, lost to the world, engaged wholly and orally by a rounded dose of flavoured sugar on a stick. 'Lagey raho' chortles the voiceover. Could ad rivalry from Joyco's PimPom, the closest brand on retail counters, have adrenalized the brand into offering such sweet advice? Almost certainly not. PimPom's advertising, if it exists at all, seems nowhere in comparison. And if you're closer to the wizened old man's age than a three-year-old's, you've probably never heard of PimPom anyway (it claims to lead the Chinese market, by the way). So low has been its media profile. So should we dump all the competition-as-adrenalin theories in the garbage can? No. Take a closer look at the evidence, and you'd want to keep your money on competition as a concept. It inspires. It provokes. It even regulates. Competition works. India's second, third and fourth most favourite TV commercials all have strong competition in the advertising arena. Coca-Cola has Pepsi, Britannica has Parle-G and Hutch has Airtel (though the biscuits example may be something of a cross-segment stretch). Moreover, it's not entirely accurate to say that the Indian market for lollipops has had no advertising other than Alpenliebe's. Not if it's adult lollipops we're talking about.
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