Saif, kareena, AR Rahman, Zaheer khan, gauti, SRK... what is common between all six of them? now its easy, but had i asked the same question 10 years before i would have been branded a lunatic. Such is the power of advertisements in our country.Six celebs in one ad, can anyone miss the brand? Why should it be celebs? Dint mascots do the trick for vodafone during the IPL? But, yet there are a lot of ads which still gets the channel changed inspite of 20 celebs on-screen at a time. So whats driving this new sector? The answer is just one word - innovation.
A few Ads which comes up when I type "innovative ads" in my mind - motorola (I think!) where the woman in a restaurant seems to be talking to a guy with her hand in her cheeks (But is actually talking over the phone), when that guy comes near her and smiles at her she says "One black coffee please." The reaction in the man's face is priceless. A series of fevicol ads, Egg doesn't break as it was in a fevicol container and hundreds of people sticking to a bus which has the poster of fevicol and the classic ad of fevi-quick - A man unlucky with fishing for hours and some loony pantaloon sings and uses fevi - quick to catch five of them instantly.
Why do we remember certain ads just a handful of them, while the others fade away in time? What makes these ads different from the others? Reasons obvious, they were funny and had a suspense element attached to them.
One more classic Ad which most of you might not have seen, not more than a few hundred rupees would have been spent on that but still was as effective as a 1 crore budget ad. Here it goes - "Do you know why companies make advertisements? Its because you can go to your kitchen open an ACT II popcorn packet put it into your microwave, so that you don't miss your favorite programme in tv and your popcorn is ready in the next ad break."
Apart from all these classics there are also the mediocre ones, which I wonder why they are made. They are so monotonous that your fingers automatically moves towards the mute button in the remote and if the images are disturbing even the power off button!! I really get upset watching such ads. They spoil my day! The first thing i see when i switch on my tv after a long day at work - (A cricket shot is played) Mak makes it possible and to add to my disappointment it repeats itself - (A cricket shot is played) Mak makes it possible. And then (A bowler takes a wicket) Mak makes it possible to repeat (A bowler takes a wicket) Mak makes it possible. I just switch off my tv and go to sleep.
I really don't understand why a few things are displayed or played in an advertisement when its either unnoticeably small or the audio is too fast for even Shakespeare to comprehend what actually is being said. An eg of such a text is found in a few bike ads -'Do not attempt this at home, the stunts are performed by trained professionals.' An eg of the audio is in ads for investment banks - (Investments are subjected to market risks... bla bla blu blu la la loo loo if u are a test cricketer don't invest in our bank) at 8X fast fwd.. I am often confused, why!! Should i not listen to this? Is that why they are playing it at 8X? should i not see it? Is that why they display the text at 0.8 size font? Its high time they learn that audience are not fools. Infact, if the text was displayed in normal font or the audio was played in normal speed we might miss it, but not now. We record the ad, slow it down read it fully before we decide if we have to make an investment in that bank.
In a nut shell, as a viewer my expectations have become very high after seeing some mind blowing ads from vodafone, fevikol, Tata DOCOMO ("shrtr s smrtr" WOW!! they ve cut short all the vowels in the sentence) , intel, fiat linea to name a few and terribly upset with a lot of mediocre ones. If ever I make an Ad sometime in my life, I ll make sure that first I am satisfied, and not stop there, travel to atleast four places in India, conduct surveys from various age groups and then make atleast a dozen changes to it and then another dozen changes before I let them screen it. 'After all Itz one in a million and Itz worth it - Sonam kapoor style'
