Ads are a never-ending source of entertainment. Even when I cannot make any sense of a few of them, they do engage my mind like a crossword puzzle that I never do manage to solve.
Ads for beauty aids for women are endlessly fascinating. If a woman is prone to irresistible impulses to pull trucks out of mud-holes with the help of her hair, there is a product to enable her to do so. If, however, a woman eschews beauty aids out of a deep sense of worthlessness, there is a company that encourages her to do so by telling her that she is worth it!
Products for men cannot be far behind, can they? What I will never understand is that, when a chap tells his cohorts that a shaving gel is actually cheap on a per shave basis, it only encourages them to queue up in front of his room to borrow a drop rather than queuing up at the mall for buying it. Only best when free, is that the message?
The same product goes one better with the mom worrying about whether her son is carrying enough shaving gel to get him through his days at college. Besides throwing an interesting sidelight on modern mothering (Mine used to worry about whether I was carrying enough home-made food supplements!), it makes you wonder what sort of god-forsaken place the son is studying in that he has to stock up on shaving gel! Or is the message about how difficult it is to get the product?
I have, also, never understood the view of India of ad-makers. In the past, there was this ad for a mobile service provider that had the punch line 'Keep it Simple, Silly' in the Hindi version. In Tamil that was translated to 'Idhu simpledaane'! Either the ad-makers thought that 'Keep it Simple, Silly' was Hindi and, so, had to be translated to Tamil or, perhaps, it was assumed that the Hindi audience was better versed in English than the Tamil audience. Only they can enlighten us about what went on in their 'creative' minds!
Whatever! Ads are fun! More fun than most programs on the idiot box!
to those silly ads credit, it made you write a blog about it :)
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