Yebhi steals a little help from Friends

You're on Facebook, just glancing at stuff and looking around. Something catches your eye; it's a familiar logo on familiar visuals. It's an ad for the popular TV show Friends and the ad asks you to 'like' it if you miss it. You love the show, and, quickly, think of how many episodes from how many seasons you've watched and enjoyed. You click it, registering your 'like'.

Except, you've not actually said that you miss the TV show. Tucked away at the top, in traditional small print, is a five-letter name you may or may not know - Yebhi. When you clicked on 'like', you registered that you 'liked' Yebhi. You weren't alone. As the visual shows you, at the time that this screen shot was taken, it was you and another 423,500 who liked it as well.

More from Business

As this is being written a few hours later, Yebhi's Facebook page has 434,456 likes - which is marginally over the 423,500 as a result of the Friends (and other) hustles.

Yebhi has certainly used the original font and typeface and style that the TV show has used, as can be seen below:

[caption id="attachment_295239" align="alignright" width="200" caption="The use of the Friends logo begs some questions."][/caption]

The use of the Friends logo begs some questions. Is the use by Yebhi of the logo just an innocent question that Yebhi wants an answer to, much like they could have, for example, used a photograph of Sachin Tendulkar and asked, "Sachin Tendulkar is the GOD of cricket? Click 'like' to agree"? Well, Yebhi's done that too

The situation gets interesting, though, because the Friends logo and Sachin's image has been used. Has Yebhi got permission to use the images in the context that it has used them?

[caption id="attachment_295242" align="alignleft" width="238" caption="Yebhi has used Sachin's picture too."][/caption]

One hopes so. Consider the lofty statement in the 'About' section on their Facebook page.

"To enable us meet our mission, we undertake some unique tasks in the industry

1. We source all our products from Brands directly or authorized agent of the brand. We don't buy products without brand authorization."

Does Yebhi use the Friends logo and the Sachin photograph with or without 'brand authorization? It's more likely to be the latter.

The Yebhi FB campaign fails on many counts - and the primary one is the poor measurement that many brands have been using on social media.

A brand manager looks at the number of 'likes' on the Facebook page and is gratified by the large number. In this case, he or she would have seen over 400,000. The problem is, that these 'likes', for the large part, have no relationship with Yebhi - their relationship is with the popular TV show or with Sachin Tendulkar.

Campaigns like this will do little to help Yebhi. Why does one get the feeling that the marketing guys at Yebhi might have little to do with it - but there's a 'social media agency' that has taken up the challenge to make Yebhi popular - as measured by the number of 'Likes'?