Advertisement: Maruti ‘Kitna Deti hai?’

For years, if one owned a car, it had to be a Maruti car. Maruti had become synonymous with affluence and the upper middle class India. Maruti 800 was an iconic car in Indian car landscape which shaped the future of Indian automobile industry. With protectionist measures and tight governmental control and overinvestment in the automobile sector, Maruti had an unrivalled reign over the Indian car market in the 90’s. But with liberalization getting a foothold in the Indian economy, and foreign players moving in, the market became an open playing field. However,  Maruti still enjoys a lion’s share of India’s car market but it had to lose a chunk of its pie to Tata Motors, Mahindra, General Motors, Ford, Hyundai, Honda, and Toyota etc. Today, cars not only offer luxury but also a choice for comfort, multi-utility, style and speed.

With competition from all quarters, Maruti has come up with its line of advertisements that have taken to the media as fish to water. Maruti has produced 3 such advertisements in Hindi and English with the common punch line of ‘Kitna deti hai’ which means ‘what’s the mileage’. Maruti has always followed the principle of making advertisements which ends in a witty or caustic punch line. Maruti, in addition to its advertisements for individual car models, also makes ads for its whole assembly of cars and advertises them as a single entity. More often than not, their ads have revolved around their supreme service network across the country or on their fuel-efficient cars.

Maruti seems to have come up with such a novel idea in response to the recent price hikes. With petrol and diesel prices being raised in the country, and the global oil prices rocketing, Maruti has come up with its advertisements to allay some fears of the customers and put itself in the front line when a customer goes hunting for a car.

All the three advertisements have one thing in common. All of them depict a mode of travel that is out of reach of the common middle class, and this is where the ads try to connect with the audience. The first advertisement shows a luxury yacht, the second one has a fighter tank and the last one shows a NASA space craft. All the three are ultra modern vehicles of the future, which are assembled with high-end technology and superfluous luxury. The common people in these advertisements are a potential customer, defense personnel and an onlooker respectively. All of them have only one question in their minds “Kitna deti hai”. As rightly said in the narrative, for a country obsessed with mileage, it is how much the return on investment is for the customer that matters, than the style, speed or luxury of the vehicle. Maruti has tried its best to not let the fuel price hikes as a deterrent to customers buying new cars by putting themselves ahead with their assembly of fuel-efficient vehicles.

The advertisement is very subtly conceived and directed, and has humor and sarcasm in equal doses. The advertisement is targeted at the millions of self-assured young people who would be looking to buying new vehicles. One question that always lingers in the sub-conscious is how much the vehicle runs per km, and Maruti has certainly struck a chord here.

As a respect to brand visibility and market capitalization, the advertisement will not be targeting any particular model. Having said that, Maruti is such a ubiquitous brand in India that any advertisement would only help accentuates its brand visibility. The real winning moment for the advertisement is that it brings out the ever lingering question of the customer out in the open space and tackles it head-on. It poses a question to the customer rather than answering one. This surely is target marketing and Maruti has pulled off a hat here: a sure-shot winner.

Ravish Prabhakar

(2 votes, average: 5.00 out of 5)
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