addendum. Dew diligence

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.

Take a macho drink like Mountain Dew. Locate the shooting on the sand dunes of Dubai. Add the magnetic personality of an A-lister like Hrithik Roshan, throw in a Hollywood director, script a storyboard that tells you about a car race. Add a massive sandstorm for good measure. And what do you get? An archetypal Mountain Dew TVC, supercharged with dune-bashing shots, filled with derring-do and chased down parched throats with some chilled Mountain Dew. And the ultimate macho symbol, Hrithik, exhorting you to risk all if success is what you crave. Four young men from a small town dare to dream of rigging up a jeep and entering a race in Dubai. The “V4” team (OK, OK, one could have thought up a more creative team name but we forgive you) almost ends up as a non-starter but then revs up and roars behind the pack only to see them all in panic-stricken retreat, chased by this mother of all sandstorms. Of course, the V4 team glug some Mountain Dew (I guess they are supposed to be in the Thar desert, India) and decide they haven’t come that far to turn back at that stage. Going for guts and glory, the team plunges ahead and emerges as the victor. A very dusty Hrithik and his team exult in the sweet success that risk-taking brings them. Consistent with the values of the brand, ensuring continuity with the creative and strategic premise, the film does its job competently. Hrithik helps.

Tractor in a lab

We rarely see advertising for tractors. And rightly so. Sitting in our urban hubs we may not be watching programmes that these products plan to be seen in. But one recalls that most advertising aimed at rural products seemed to have a particular air about them —the of a typical rural scene. Green fields, water pouring from tubewells, big swarthy Sikh farmers converting agriculture into gold and some “ balle balle ” kind of music. Fertilisers, tractors, seeds, you name it, it fits the formula. So I was pleasantly surprised to see a TVC created by Interface Communications for Arjun Nuvo, a tractor from the Mahindra stable. It is set in a very hi-tech-looking design lab and the use of 3D animation really makes the ad stand apart from the crowd. The content is, of course, aimed at the features of the tractors, but the production values are really good and one was pleasantly surprised to see these in a category that has been slightly ignored. Well, the Indian farmer needs everything he can get to contribute his might to the economy and to his family, so I guess he deserves good advertising aimed at him as well. Robby and his team at Interface can take a bow.

Saved by the tot

The last quarter of the year generally sees a spurt in financial services advertising so don’t be surprised if we are reviewing many such ads. There’s SBI Life with a new commercial created by O&M. Dads have never had it so good in advertising. Here you have a young army officer wondering to himself if he would qualify as a great dad. And the film shows us various situations with a very young son where he alternately feels he is a great dad and he isn’t so great after all. Eventually his soliloquy ends with him realising that there is really no way to know it so soon. It ends with the little fellow falling asleep and almost falling down, only to be supported by his dad. The voiceover exhorts fathers to ensure their presence is felt even after they have gone. Brother! And I thought we had stopped making such ads. The dialogue delivery of the father could be better, the entire premise and action line could be something definitely better. The saving grace is the little boy. He is spot on. Bet we will be seeing more of this tot in the days ahead. Let’s hope he gets to act in better commercials, though!

Ramesh Narayan is a communications consultant. Mail your comments to cat.a.lyst@thehindu.co.in

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