Thursday 13 October 2011

The make-believe world of advertisement

Welcome to the world of advertisement! Enter on your own risk as the things here are totally different from  what they appear.

Advertisers would do anything, play conveniently with consumer's weaknesses and emotions , to sell their products. As is truly said that; "Advertising is the art of convincing people to spend money they don't have for something they don't need'!

The influence commercial advertisements have on psychology and choices of people , especially children is baffling! My boys' choice of toothpaste, soap, shampoo etc changes  according to the latest and most popular ad of the week! They persuade me to buy Complan for them , attracted by its claims to increase height in double speed. And a few weeks later when Horlicks comes up with this hard-to-beat tagline of 'taller, stronger, sharper' , their love for Complan vanishes in thin air. Now they want the three in one package deal of Horlicks!

My kids simply love Maggi noodles. But then which kid doesn't! They demand the Maggi by quoting the tagline "health bhi, khushiya bhi". I agree with the second half of this slogan "khushiya bhi" (happiness), as I can witness the joy and excitement on my boys' faces as they slurp the noodles. But health?? seriously?? How do the advertisers expect mothers to believe that the few barely-visible-dehydrated-pieces of vegetables in Maggi has the goodness of greens and health packed in them! Duh!!  But I do feed my kids Maggi noodles occasionally just to see their delighted faces. For their health, I feed them more nutritious things!
And then there are those embarrassing commercials that never fail to fetch curious questions from kids. Every time the Idea 3G latest ad of 'population control' is shown, my nine year old wants to know that what does a 3G connection have to do with babies? (any suggestions about how to explain it to a nine year old!)  :-)

Surf excel has made a mother's job doubly difficult.  Now children returning from school  wear stains on their uniforms as medals and justify themselves by quoting Surf excel's slogan 'daag acche hai'! (Dirt is good).


But why blame only the children? Adults are also influenced everyday in their choices by catchy advertisements. Fairness creams like 'Fair and Lovely' thrive in Indian markets due to Indians' fixation for fair skin. If one fairness cream claims to give a fairer skin in 20 days, another one claims to perform the miracle in just 7 days! Phew!    There are countless other products that claim to perform various kinds of unbelievable miracles, for example, defy age and make you ageless as Sleeping beauty, give you a skin as flawless and white as Snow white's , make you as slender as Cindrella , and make your hair as long and strong as Rapunzel's!!

Just imagine for a while that if all these products worked exactly as advertisements claim, what a world it would be and how our lives would be transformed! All the women in the world would turn into beauty queens with a figure to die for, flawless skin and long shiny hair. And all the men would be tall, dark..oops! correction- fair, and handsome! And rich,with money in various investment schemes! And they would always smell  just -out -of -shower inspite of sweating in gruelling month of May! And all the kids would be 'taller,stronger and sharper'! And before any examination, instead of studying, all they would need would be just a bowl of Kellog's cornflakes, or even just an ordinary Mentos would do the trick! Remember the Mentos tagline ; "Dimag ki batti jalade"!  And they need not worry about improving their handwriting as various kinds of pencils and pens would automatically take care of it. (I wonder what kind of pens do the doctors use?)

Many a times I have found myself buying some utterly useless product, or choosing one brand over the other just because of the clever advertising! I have tried to manage my dog phobia by gulping down Mountain Dew in the false hope of its promising slogan "Darr ke aage jeet hai"  (There is victory after fear)! But to no avail, I am as chicken as ever!

Though most of the advertisements are exxageration at its heights, there are some honest ads as well, like Sprite's famous slogan "Sprite bujhaye only pyaas, baki sab bakwaas"! Now that's what we call an honest ad! :)

But serioulsly, whether honest or blatant lies, one has to agree that Indian ad films are most original, creative, interesting and fun to watch.So while you all read this post ,I have to run because my favourite ad of the month is on air!!   :)


Saturday 1 October 2011

I am the google of my house!!

Yes! you read it right! I am the google of my house. I have to constantly search. Whether it is the misplaced wallet and keys of my husband, politically correct answers to the tricky questions of my kids, solution to a complex situation, reason of my kids' tantrums or the explanation of my husband's moodiness! I am always searching!!

In this male populated house, being the only female I am expected to be the search engine. My husband keeps forgetting the 'misplacing location' of his things. Be it his wallet, his keys, his documents, his ring, his mobile or his cheque book! you name it! And I am supposed to know the exact location of every misplaced thing and produce it magically. Though I do succeed most of the time , but it irritates me. I want to tell my hubby that, " please google your own things, I have a lot of my own googling to do!" But then I see my MIL searching every morning for my FIL's misplaced belongings, and I smile to myself and realize that "It runs in the male genes of the family!"

And then there is my elder one who actually thinks that his mother has got all the answers and she is the google!! (Ah! the naivety of childhood!) So to answer his endless questions ranging from extinct species to dwarf planets, I have to open my laptop and get google's help. Though now I have taught him how to google and get his own answers.

And then there is my younger one who wants me to search and produce chocolates for him all the time. Though I must say that he has inherited some of my googling abilities. He can sniff a chocolate from the corners of my purse and depths of my cupboard.

And then there's me! Constantly thinking and searching reasons for my complex emotions, my restlessness, my hard-to-crack-nuttiness! Finding meaning where none exists! searching answers to perplexing questions that are beyond human comprehension, beyond google search engine!! :)