The Hindu Business Line : Madison International

We recall Anil Ambani addressing the AdClub Bombay on its 75th birthday and bemoaning the fact that while other sectors in India like IT, auto components, hotels, forgings and telecom have started becoming Indian multinationals, the advertising agencies were content being colonised by the foreign agencies. The head honchos of the advertising agencies were seen turning pink in the face, but only slightly.

Against this backdrop one must feel happy that one Indian agency seems to be in the mood to move outside the shores of Bharat and make its presence felt abroad. Madison, which is arguably the biggest Indian media major, is reported to have bought a stake in a Thai event management company. Well, maybe the quantum of the investment would not set the Bay of Bengal on fire but it is a significant movement in an otherwise strictly one-way street where Indian agencies sold and the big white sharks bought.

Take a bow, Mr Balsara. We look forward to hearing many more such announcements from you soon.

ASCI & Ariel

Ariel: Ad under fire?

We read a report that the venerable Advertising Standards Council of India (ASCI) had ruled that the Ariel commercial that showed a young lad splashing ink around should be pulled out. It seems ASCI had also pulled up Unilever for its Surf Kids Stain Remover commercial. Honestly, we don't see either P&G or Unilever cowering in fear. In fact, the tactical commercials must have already done their job and the client can piously say it is conforming to ASCI's ruling and withdrawing the offending commercial. The point to note is that these commercials that are pulled up by ASCI are not made by some little tier-3 town advertiser and a non-accredited agency. They are commissioned and produced by multinational giants and top agencies. And representatives of these advertisers and agencies are on the governing body of the ASCI. So what's their excuse each time?

Ethics anyone?

Far from ASCI and the big advertisers whose favourite pastime is to make intra-industry complaints and then go about undressing with their lights on, one does not know what to make of Wal-Mart and its decision to sack its change agent Julie Roehm and the agency she zeroed in on, Draft FCB. It seems the reasons for this extreme action was that she let the agency pay for a couple of lychee martinis and lobster sushi at the tony Nobu's in NewYork, and she went for a drive in the Aston Martin owned by Howard Draft, of Draft FCB. It seems Wal-Mart take its ethics very, very seriously.

Well, FCB Ulka can forget about automatically getting the Bharti Wal-Mart business (not that they got too much business from FCB in the first place) and Mr Anil Kapoor might want to take care who he gives a ride to in his car. Of course, Kapoor's Mercedes might not compare with the Draft Aston Martin (no, Kapoor has not got an Aston Martin yet) but then we doubt any client in India would take umbrage to being treated to a couple of fine malts at the Belvedere, or some Sushi at Wasabi in Mumbai. And then, of course, we aren't even talking about the clients who look anything like what Julie looks like.

Star wars

What's with Shah Rukh Khan and Amitabh Bachchan? First you had SRK chewing paan and belting out Benarasi numbers in a remake of the Amitabh hit, Don. Then you had him taking over the role of quiz master from the Big B and ensuring that Star becomes a crorepati many times over.

Yes. It seems Paritosh of Star can't stop smiling as he counts the money flowing in. And SRK hasn't even started giggling. Now you have SRK taking you on a world tour and ending up in an ICICI commercial to the strains of Hum Hain Na. Old timers tell us that ICICI first burst upon the advertising scene in a major way by signing on the Big B as its brand ambassador for an amount that at the time looked enormous. We are sure what they are paying SRK would make that fee look rather small. If you want to know what King Khan would be doing next, speak to your local Big B expert. Let's hope he doesn't follow Bachchan down the road to politics. God knows, the Congress would be thrilled, but Khan would be wise to take note of how that episode ended for the Big B. He is better off in movies, TV and the mad ad world.

Pears soap

Pears: Hoary old brand

Someone showed us a reprint of a 1934 Pears soap poster in the magnificient Taj Magazine. The visual is of a Ravi Verma-like model dressed up like the goddess Saraswati, seated on a lotus in a pond with a little mace in one hand and a baby in the other. The copy beneath this reads "Pears' Soap. Pure as the Lotus. Learn without sorrow, the eternal truth, that youth is god-like and beauty is youth." You've come a long way, baby!

Victoria

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