When I first saw the “Ek Rediffmail Bhej Ke Toh Dekho” advertisement on TV, I wanted to blog about it the very same minute but unfortunately I could not get a hold of the video till today.

Seems like everyone (Airtel, Tata, Idea, Rediff) are using some kind of social advertising message to reach out to new customers. Airtel with their crossing barriers ad. , Tata coming up with a vote grabbing politician ad, Idea with a stupid Abhishek Bachchan ad. and now rediffmail started their “Ek Rediffmail Bhej Ke Toh Dekho” ad. For a moment I thought this is something like the ibibo baltigiri , which is more like a complaint forum but rediffmail ad is all about asking people to signup and use rediffmail.

There are a couple of reason for this kind of advertising, firstly rediff’s email service is getting stiff competition from AOL and MSN email service, secondly since both AOL and MSN are foreign companies, they can’t come out with a social message for India. This is where rediffmail saw the opportunity hit the nail right in the center.

Frankly I think the advertising served no purpose, the social message was nothing more than a gimmick to get more users to sign up for their email service. Companies need to remember a simple fact, when they try and sell their own product / service masquerading as a social service message, it comes out really fake and their brand value drops.