Great expectations but...

Addendum is a weekly column that takes a sometimes hard, sometimes casual, sometimes irreverent, yet never malicious look at some of the new or recent advertisements and comments on them.

When the third largest private bank in the country ties up with Bollywood’s numero uno leading lady and proposes a campaign by Lowe Lintas, one can be forgiven for great expectations. So you have the ravishing Deepika Padukone playing herself, sashaying into a crowded press conference where every reporter is clamouring to ask her a question. (Thank God my reporting days were so different!) The actor signals to one lucky reporter who uses the great opportunity to ask her “Now you are with Axis Bank, how do you feel?”

The sheer “profundity” of the question is dazzling in its lack of originality. The actor gamely replies that she feels she is progressing and then conveniently looks behind at the Axis Bank backdrop and reads out the tagline “ Badthe ka naam zindagi ” as everyone obligingly laughs with her. She then calls out, “Next question!” I am waiting with morbid curiosity to see if the next commercial takes the next question. Meanwhile, I saw a business channel asking Balki what “progress” meant to him, and was marvelling at the rather nice reply he gave over about two minutes. Well, I guess one cannot compare the real world with the reel world, especially when you have just seconds to say what the client wants you to say.

Chicken in love

I saw this longish film called the Great Divide. It tells the story of a charming chicken zinger and a dreamy paneer zinger falling in love. But they were far apart, so the charming chicken zinger decides to do something about it only to face the ultimate glass ceiling, er … glass divider. And then KFC went on to tell me it ensures that vegetarian and non-vegetarian dishes are kept far apart and use separate chefs, utensils, ingredients and oils. And this would warm the cockles of any self-respecting vegetarian. It broke my heart. The story of the charming zinger and the dreamy zinger was so well shown, the romantic in me was dying to see a happy ending. No such luck. It’s a cruel world that keeps lovers apart. Oh, by the way, great ad! But guys, couldn’t you somehow contrive a happy ending? Successful Bollywood films do it all the time …

Happiness takes centre-stage

Just when you think that plywood and veneer would be disastrously boring commodities to advertise, you look back and wonder at the excellent advertising this category has been able to generate. Century has been at the centre-stage of this and now it has decided to become the centre-stage of happiness. There is this series of TVCs, two long and two short made for Century Ply by DDB Mudra West that brought back the joy of watching advertisements. It’s about a family in different situations, all built around common pieces of furniture, a dining table, a sofa, a bed. And while people are complimenting the food as they dine, or cheering the cricket team while they bounce on the sofa, there is the enormously talented Nana Patekar playing a delightfully taciturn character (you never place him precisely in the family), bringing the conversation back to the insentient pieces of furniture, extolling their virtues and positioning them as the stage on which happy things take place.

Patekar is the life of the campaign. His legendary dialogue delivery is in evidence, his wonderful range of talent on show as he moves effortlessly from demanding elder to the impish endorser with effortless ease. Commercial breaks will be agony now. You have to hold on longer before you run to the rest room.

(Ramesh Narayan is a communications consultant. Send your comments to >cat.a.lyst@thehindu.co.in )

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