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Originally Posted by selfdrive Unfortunately these days, almost every second ad has a sexual overtone to it. Looks like our ad agencies are full of sexually deprived or depraved people. And there is no restriction on the timings that these are displayed. I mean come in, some of them should not be displayed before midnight if at all. It is very embarrassing to answer questions from 4 year old kids as to why someone on TV is gyrating or suggestively indicating something. One question I had recently was about some inverter ad where the guy jumps onto the bedpost and then lands up at an adoption agency. Somebody pleas stop this crap!
there is only so much channel flipping that one can do. These days, such ads are just teeming everywhere.
if not using such tones to sell, these agencies end up using some filmstar to sell something. Where have all the creative minds gone? |
I have written one commercial where the ladies go oooh and aaah after a man who's just applied a XYZ brand of deo. The reason why I wrote that script was because of the research that I got. And this research was combined+provided by a multinational data research agency (one of fortune top 100 companies). I initially though that maybe we can sell this deo in a different way, but none of the scripts went through the focus-group. In the focus-group there were guys from government offices to college-going-kids to IT guys. They all disapproved the script. And when I wrote one with couple of girls in it, all 3 scripts got approved. Funny, ain't it?
What incidents make you want to think about buying an inverter? If they would have shown a lame reason like 'can't work in the dark', 'can't eat it the dark' or 'can't walk in the dark' then would you watch the ad again? The reason why whichever agency did that commercial...chose that particular situation is because it magnifies the drama of what all can happen if you don't have an inverter? Ask the V-guard guys for their figures and I can bet my years of advertising experience that their sales must have gone up.
And to clarify why we need these superstars is that "
Most of the people in this country are dumb." This is how the manufacturers/marketing companies of the deos and perfumes and soaps classify them as. Imagine a scenario. You work for a major FMCG company where you manufacture this ABC soap for a particular market. You're doing all fine. Suddenly the ZYX soap from France launches its soap at the same price point in the same market. The people have only aspired to take a bath with this ZYX soap all their lives. They know that their cousins in US use this soap advertised by penelope cruz. And now, in India, Aishwarya Rai is advertising for it. She's beautiful. She uses this soap.
If I apply this soap and leave my ABC soap then I'll have the same skin too. So the ABC company will also rope in some celebrity and try to hold on to their consumers. The thing is that they don't know that any soap in a 5-20 rupee price band will more or less do the same thing. It's only educated people like me and you who know this fact. In fact, these guys don't want to target you at all. they only want to target the 60% of uneducated/ignorant junta of this country while you watch Pune and Kolkata in a cricket battle. Do you think a normal model could have accentuated the drama of selling a vest like Dollar or Amul Macho like Akshay and Saif have? Only way
Slice can differentiate themselves from Frooti and mazaa and others is by coming up with something like Aamsutra. And do you think any other unknown face would have done better for them if not Katrina? She is one of the most desired actress right now and it right for
Slice to bank on it.
However, I agree that there should be a time-band when
such ads are shown. I've felt disgusted when I had to watch the same deo commercial with my 7 year old nephew and all he said is "Mast music hai chachu" (Great music uncle!) while I know that some subliminal message has already been passed on to him.
It is how they (and in turn we) make money. And most of us are married and committed to our partners. We are as much sexually deprived and depraved as the guys working in Sales or IT companies or Municipality department of XYZ city or whichever industry you may belong to. We go
haha for the same adult joke that tickles you too, during your coffee break. So please do not generalize a good chunk of people who lose their sleep to come out with a good and interesting ad for you day in and out.
PS: I always keep a cartoon channel on swap button when watching with a kid around me.
(We can continue the argument in PM mode. Or you can create a thread for it. I don't really like infractions
)