On the occasion of the on-going Indian Premier League (IPL), season 11, Onida has got back their popular mascot- Devil. The brand is talking about their latest range of Air conditioners, keeping in mind the summer season. Reportedly, this year, the brand is expected to do a lot of seasonal marketing, starting with ACs, then during the monsoon, it will advertise their range of washing machines and then for Diwali, it will be television sets and microwaves. Reportedly, a marketing budget of Rs 20 crore has been allocated by the company, exclusively for the IPL season.

The new ad desperately tries to be funny, while we are seeing a henpecked Devil, who is afraid of his wife in hell, a stereotypical picture about every husband and wife, we have to admit, that are missing the original Devil big time, which was played by David Whitbread. Interesting, he was with the brand for 14 years. Actors Rajesh Khera, Aamir Bashir, Ashish Chaudhury played the role of Devil in the following years, who according to us, were not that effective.

Watch the new Onida ad, where the Devil comes back:

'Devil' is considered as the most iconic brand mascot and it had helped the brand usurp the major electronic market share in the 1990s. Using the tagline 'Neighbour's Envy, Owner's Pride', the Devil helped to create immense brand recall among their competitors. According to an old Mint report, Krishnamurthy Sriram, vice-president (marketing, sales and service) at Mirc Electronics Ltd that owns the Onida brand, estimated that the devil single-handedly pumped Onida’s market share in televisions up from 5-6 percebt in 1981 to 19-20 percent at the campaign’s peak—which came just before 1995.

Watch David Whitbread in Onida's ad:

Watch Aashish Chaudhary as the Devil:

Watch Rajesh Khera in Onida's ad:

Ever since then, the brand has time and again kept on revising their strategy on the decision to use the Devil in their marketing campaigns. In 1999, the company had dropped the Devil because it felt that the 'emotional connect' of envy has been lost. It was repeated in 2009 and 2013 as well, when the audience didn't get to see the Devil, but it kept on reviving. In 2016, the brand decided to infuse an element of newness and thus introduced 'God'-as their new mascot to promote the company's range of air conditioners. However, even though the concept was new, but people found it very difficult to connect with it.

Even though, the new ad has been launched during IPL, with the intention of grabbing the maximum eyeballs and also increasing Onida's awareness in the rural market. The ad however, according to us, falls flat. We really hope, that Onida can manage to get back the old charm and the devilish charisma in their mascot in the coming ads. It will not only help the brand  to connect with the audience, but also  improve their market share in the electronics market.

(The above story first appeared on LatestLY on Apr 09, 2018 04:44 PM IST. For more news and updates on politics, world, sports, entertainment and lifestyle, log on to our website latestly.com).