The Hindu Business Line : No need to ship your models from Mars

THERE was this `definitely male' bike ad, which used to make men worried about their equipment, while women seemed to be educated as to what to look for.

"Wait, are our men so Neanderthal that they can relate only to images of virility and not economic benefit?" asks Seira Tamang, a social science researcher in Kathmandu, in an article on www.nepalnews.com.nv.

"And are our men not masculine enough that they need to acquire it through material purchases?"

Now, a different series of ads show bikes that screech on one wheel, as if that were the ultimate trick one can do.

So, after seeing the ad, when a kid asks her dad, "Do that for me, won't you" the poor fellow would first need to talk to his insurance agent before going ahead to please his child.

Again, on roads, if you see college students dangerously driving bikes, it starts making your pulse race faster, and sooner or later the city cops would be drawing more yellow circles with 304A (causing death by rash and negligent act) inside.

Call the ads juvenile or irresponsible, but it looks like agencies run out of ideas. How else can one explain a big hoarding that has been sitting squat on Stella Maris College compound? It advertises men's shirts but the chap looks like imported.

And if you were to buy the advertised colour of shirt, some deep purple, it might well act as a repellent when you launch on your leisure activities.

Which is why, I doubt, if most men really enjoy seeing ads that portray men's clothing.

The standard recipe for models is that they are what is considered `ideal' with the right proportions of muscles, height, jaw, nose, eye colour, hair and so on, and often foreign.

Well, if women liked to see only such specimens, you don't have enough of them here to achieve the right ratio, do you? So, what are the ads trying to do: get the women buy those apparels to clothe their men so they miraculously transform into the desired form. Ridiculous.

All that is said above would apply, mutatis mutandis, to ads for women's things too. Purpose of ads is to create the right images that would stay in the mind of would-be buyers who would look for the thing when they go to shop.

But since we keep distilling the images through our own value systems, it could be odd if general sensibilities are not respected by the copywriters who apparently live in their own worlds.

In this context, Hutch's series of ads on `click-print' merits mention because of its choice of characters that are so earthly.

Whether it be the kids, men or women, they don't appear to have been shipped from Mars. In fact, they are as unsystematic as a regular tourist or anybody.

But our local companies are happier with models that have the perfect row of teeth, the right statistics, and dream faces.

For them, the next-door commoner doesn't exist. Using engineered beauty to draw consumers could have worked sometime in the past, and sticking to that would be like trying to prolong a dream by oversleeping.

That, however, is a thought for those who want a return on ad-spend rather than book a huge expenditure just to showcase a crazy copywriter's creativity for posterity.

E&OE@thehindu.co.in

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