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 India’s greatest cartoonist and satirist RK Laxman passes on, like the silent common man he created, one grieves in silence. Yet a word about his most famous contribution to the world of advertising: He created Gattu, the impish mascot of the home improvement behemoth Asian Paints. I have loved seeing Gattu work for Asian Paints and angrily wrote that it was making a mistake dropping him as its mascot several years ago. Now I noticed a print ad from Asian Paints mourning Laxman’s loss with Gattu in the frame. It’s still not too late, guys, bring him back! He’s a great differentiator for you all. KBS Anand, are you listening?

Lay it on!

So Lay’s betting big on the cricket World Cup in Australia. And must be really sweating that the matches will all be played out at some ungodly hour, what with Australia being five-six hours ahead of India. So it is pulling out all the stops and “laying” it on thick. JWT has a TVC, the first of several that has youth icon Ranbir Kapoor exhorting the young and the old to make light of the crazy timings and concentrate on the taste of Lays wafers. Or even forget the matches but crunch your way through bags of Lays potato wafers. And Star TV, which must have paid a bomb for the telecast rights, is telling you to record the matches and sleep easy. So, whatever the deal, don’t forget the wafers!

Un-dress

I am not a fashionista. I don’t claim to understand or even care about what the latest fashions are. So the idea of following them, or conforming to what is “in” is very “out” for me. I know that if I wear the clothes I have, long enough, they will come back into vogue. If they don’t, I couldn’t really be bothered. And that’s why even though I am not someone who relates to fashion, I simply loved the commercial created by Jack In The Box for FabAlley, an online fashion portal. In short, they had a comedienne doing a stand-up act in the nude. Yes, you read it right the first time. Shocked? Intrigued? Want to go to YouTube and see it for yourself? I wouldn’t blame you. In fact, I would encourage you to do so. This TVC breaks the mould for similar advertising. OK, Jockey said “Jockey or nothing”. This begins by showing “nothing”. No fashion statements, no chic designs, no svelte models. Just Radhika Vaz, a stand-up comic who takes off her clothes and tells it like it is. Four-letter words and all. The diatribe against having to worry about what to wear, how to be perceived, what kind of an impression to make is liberally strewn with the ‘f” word and ends with an emphatic middle finger gesture for good measure. Girl, when you say it like you feel it, you really manage to hold our attention. Radhika, take a bow! So this is a statement from an online fashion portal I had never heard of before but one I will not forget in a hurry. Just because it had shock value? No. Because it had undeniable shock value which was not shocking me for the sake of shocking me. It made a relevant point. A point many people will resonate with. Something that many people feel strongly about. OK, now they’ve got the eyeballs. And our interest. Those who are genuinely interested will go to FabAlley.com and take a look. The advertising’s job is done. Over to FabAlley now for what it has to offer. It had better be more that a communication statement. They’ll never get a second chance.

Valentine’s Day

And if you are the not-so-romantic type waiting for Valentine’s Day to say you love her, you might consider the Cadbury’s Silk chocolate in a special edition packaging. A cute little TVC where a young couple play “handsie” to get the chocolate bar offers you that choice.

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

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