Rudimentary Ramblings

I was watching a movie on TV the other day which have a million ad breaks or should I say I was watching some ads on TV the other day which have a million movie breaks. Whatever be the case, when a 3 hour long Hindi movie is extended to 4 hours because of the ads one somehow loses focus of the plot (which, when you consider how ridiculously simple Hindi movie plots are, is amazing). Now, my intention of writing this blog was to review Rekha's best movie to date, Madame X (yes thats the name!! and please sense the sarcasm), I cannot, because I somehow got more involved with the ads. And thanks to SET Max's excruciatingly long commercial breaks I have found some new people who are to be the new target of my hatred, the admen!!

In the good old days lying was an art reserved for the politicians and the lawyers. But today there are new players in the lying playing field, the advertisers. I must also mention that they are new players in the stupidity and insanity playing fields as well. Tata Tea had an ad where 4 young army officers come to the commanding officer's house to receive their posting. Now this soooo parallels reality doesn't it? The 3 officers who drink Tata Tea receive Goa as their posting whereas the "poor" soul who doesn't is shipped of to Ladakh. Hmmm..... so by drinking Tata Tea you basically become a sissy who'd rather go and party in Goa and by not drinking it you are a brave soul who would defend his country in one of the most hostile battlefields on Earth. Somebody please donate these admakers a brain! Even a monkey's would do because then at least they would have one.

The insanity continues. Fair and lovely made an ad with the tagline, "Be macho and use a men's fairness cream". What the *@#%!!!! What lunatic thought that using the terms "macho" and "fairness cream" in the same sentence would be a good idea?? If this were any other country this cream would repel even the most panziest and metrosexualest of men. But thanks to our "gora" obsession it will sell no matter how silly the ad. Since I am on the topic of Fair & Lovely there are more samples of their insanity. A dark girl wants to make a career for herself so what does she do? Nopes, she doesn't enroll herself in a premier B-school nor does she sleep with the director of a Bollywood movie. She applies that magic cream called Fair & Lovely, becomes gora (thanks to some airbrushing) and is now an air hostess. Now the message being conveyed here is wrong on so many different levels that an entire book can be published about it. But this isn't the question of one ad. The company has been making these kinds of ads for ages scarring generations of women and making a fortune out of selling their products. If it were up to me I would line up all the people responsible for this preposterous marketing campaign and drown them in their own medicine ....errr..... fairness cream.

But the lunacy doesn't end there. Here's Mountain Dew's punchline: "Dar se mat daro. Dar se aage bado. Mountain Dew." I like Mountain Dew. In fact it is my favourite soft drink. I have gulped down a million bottles in my life but never have I felt fearless after drinking it. I have never emptied a bottle and had an intense urge to drive a Gypsy down treacherous Himalayan roads at breakneck speeds. All I have ever felt after drinking Mountain Dew is a satisfaction brought about by quenching my thirst. In this respect I believe that Sprite had the most sensible ad campaign. The line "Sprite bujhaye only pyaas... baaki all bakwaas" is iconic and striking contrast to the absolute trash of advertising campaigns other colas have.

Lunacy on a global scale. Axe is the winner here. Hands down. The new Axe campaign features one dude dousing himself with some Axe deodorant on a beach and within milliseconds there are billions of bikini clad babes swarming towards him from every direction. Cut to real life. I spray myself with some of the new Axe fragrances at the super market for some testing. It smells so bad that not only does it not attract any women but it also repels a couple of the flies that were buzzing around me. Now I didn't for one brief moment that the new Axe would be some new age love potion but to think that so much much hoopla over something that smells this bad made me feel betrayed. I sure want to hunt down the admakers at Axe with a real sharp axe.

It is said that there is no such thing as bad publicity. This is a line which is probably engraved onto the DNA of today's advertisers. The constant exposure to such grotesque forms of marketing has created a youth who are able to hum the latest ad jingle but unable to remember the first line of the national anthem. A generation which embodies the "brand nahi to style nahi" punchline. Advertising has truly become mad-vertising and everyone will soon need psychiatric care.