Addendum is a fortnightly 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. Write in with either advertisements you wish reviewed or with your comments at addendum.brandline@gmail.com

3G, loud and clear

I don't use 3G yet, but I'm told that there is a huge market in India waiting to embrace the benefits of quicker speeds, clearer images and uninterrupted video. Wow, now that's really something! And Reliance has caught the proverbial bull by its horns by putting out two TVCs that quite literally show you the difference in watching and listening to something on “any 3G” as against on Reliance 3G. And the message is crystal clear, besides being quick, and devoid of that irritating buffering we've all had to put with all these years. The young lady croons, gets cut off, freezes, and then walks across to the Reliance 3G side of the frame and then really gets her song going, clear voice, strumming guitar and all. The message couldn't be more unequivocal. Very effective advertising. Yet, the frightening kind of effective advertising that squarely puts the quality of the product on the line. You better be really sure of your product before you put out advertising like this. Bravo!

3G, with Sirji

“Me-too” products such as 3G present a great case study of contrasting approaches to a similar objective. Idea Cellular and Lowe have created a new TVC with Abishek Bachchan where the population problem is attributed to the lack of entertainment available on TV, etc, due to the power shortages. The net result is that couples engage in the only form of entertainment they seem to have, and the population keeps ticking at a brisk pace. Enter Sirji, with 3G from Idea and suddenly there are videos to be watched and mothers to be spoken to (while they are seen) and a hundred different absorbing, entertaining alternatives to you know what. New net result … the population begins to fall and everyone's happy. Very simplistic? Well, after Idea ran a TVC on referring to people by numbers instead of names, coincidentally the Unique ID project came into existence. Who can tell ... Anyway, an absorbing and “different” TVC, and as they always say, vive la difference!

Needlessly large?

And so there's a new controversy. Has M. S. Dhoni, Captain Cool and the darling of millions of Indians, offended Harbhajan Singh, the Turbanator in the new McDowell Platinum TVC? The story line goes like this. Royal Stag has a TVC where Bhajji is shown ruminating in his father's ball bearing factory in Jalandhar if he had “made it large or not”. Part of an ongoing campaign that exhorts you to make it large. (Remember the one with Saif Ali Kan and half the Indian cricket team? No? I don't blame you.) Anyway, McDowell Platinum had a spoof on that with a Bhajji look-alike who has taken the Royal Stag message seriously and manufactured huge ball bearings. His “father” comes and delivers a stinging slap and a reprimand for his pains. And then Dhoni is shown saying, “Forget making things large, make things differently”, or words to that effect. So has he offended his team mate? Has he offended anyone else? Quite honestly, through the script and the film, it is obvious that this is a spoof. And one normally takes a light-hearted look at a spoof. That doesn't mean it cannot offend someone close to the person being spoofed. So am I giving Dhoni a clean chit? Well, personally I think the advertisement doesn't offend. It doesn't even raise a chuckle. It does make one think of two eminent youth icons who could be role models, but prefer to make a quick buck endorsing a surrogate product. It also makes one think of Sachin Tendulkar who was apparently offered a bundle by McDowell but refused it, saying he would not endorse a liquor brand. Now there's a youth icon if ever there was one! And now that Mr Mallya has graciously withdrawn the TVC, the storm is the whisky decanter, sorry, in the soda bottle has officially blown over. Cheers!

Coming alive

Cookies crumble, ice cubes clink, coffee beans gracefully dissolve into an ocean of creamy white milk, beautiful brown eyes widen impossibly with delight and an ecstatic “sooo good” tells you that KFC's new Kafeccino has arrived. And don't you dare call it just “cold coffee”! O&M's new TVC brings out the young new taste of Kafeccino in a delightfully enjoyable way. This is fresh new territory, where beverages acquire a new life of their own. My mom would have never imagined where her trusted old “ kapi ” would go. And the kind of shapely eyebrows it would raise.

Vox Pop: Rishikesh from Gopalapuram, Chennai writes in about the Greenlam Laminates: “We watch TV to escape from the realities of life. To have some moments of happiness. So to be reminded of death at that hour is not a good prospect at all.” He goes on to say the TVC would never pass the “breakfast test” that crosswords in the US need to pass.

_ Ramesh Narayan

(The writer is a communications consultant.)

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