addendum. Creating empathy

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.

The latest in the growing number of campaigns that seek to sensitise people about their attitudes to women is one by Breakthrough, an NGO for women’s empowerment. Called ‘Share Your Story With Your Son’, it urges women to tell their sons how they have been harassed by men.

The film shows a teenager throwing flower petals at his female neighbours from his balcony as they leave the building. His mother, who notices it as she comes out to hang out the washing, starts telling him about how some youths on a bike threw popcorn at her and asked her if they could have it back. ‘What can one do, though? You can’t drive sense into everyone!’ she says, even as the camera shows the son swallowing nervously, with guilt and surprise.

Breakthrough’s survey shows that 90 per cent of women and girls have experienced sexual harassment at least once in their lifetime. Most young men are unaware of what actually constitutes sexual harassment and their actions are usually dismissed with statements such as “boys will be boys”.

Ogilvy & Mather seems to get the tactical bits right with this educational spot – the mother seeming to ignore her son’s act so she can effectively teach him a lesson without an angry reprimand, the son’s discomfiture as realisation strikes that his mother is complaining against the same kind of behaviour he just indulged in. Breakthrough is the same NGO that ran the award-winning Bell Bajao /Ring the Bell campaign to raise awareness about domestic violence.

Setting up on your own?

OLX’s new campaign is a major departure from its earlier ones as it features buyers rather than sellers.

In one TVC, two young men discuss what they need to furnish their start-up’s office with. Chairs, tables, computers, printers … arranging the money just for this will take them a year so they decide to buy it second-hand on OLX. In the other, a newly-wed couple who marry without their families’ consent enter their home only to find that their friends have furnished it with stuff sold on OLX. It’s practical to do so when you’re starting out on your own, is the message that comes through really well in these films.

A happy brew

A couple is squabbling, and their friend, a man, is watching, as he begins to brew a celebratory pot of tea with Tata Tea’s Fusion, which comes with Assam tea and ‘enhancer’ Kenyan tea (or green) that can be customised to one’s taste.

The woman announces she is breaking up with the guy. “You don’t even shave!” she cries. “I will change, really,” he pleads. The friend, who harbours the hope that he can move in when the other guy moves out, is ultimately disappointed to find out that the problem has been solved – his rival has shaved and the couple is back cootchie-cooing… and drinking his special tea. Lowe Lintas has made this TVC. I like the disappointed man delivering the tagline in a disgruntled-but-resigned tone. More interesting is the insight into how unruly beards get women’s goats!

The new cool

There’s this campaign, now only on digital media, for jeans and apparel brand Flying Machine’s Autumn Winter collection. It stars Arjun Kapoor, and employs this technique called stop motion animation. There are several graphics flitting convulsively all around the screen, and so is Arjun Kapoor – rather, what looks like a cutout of him. There’s a new brand ‘anthem’ called Tripping High, with a catchy beat, and the graphics aren’t bad either. It aims to reflect the “new cool”, as a press release puts it. It’s an interesting video alright that Mullen Lowe Lintas has made.

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