Good connect

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. Write in with your comments to cat.a.lyst@thehindu.co.in

It takes maturity to not see red when someone comes up, pretends to be on your side and fans the flames of jealousy. Either that, or Havells ‘wires that don’t catch fire’.

In a rather amusing ad by Lintas that brings three famous ‘villains’ of the Hindi film world together, Shakti Kapoor provokes Prem Chopra by saying, you spent all your life being a villain, acted in so many movies and he gets the lifetime achievement award? ‘He’ being Ranjeet in bright blue suit, holding award aloft and pretty young thing draped all over him.

Chopra resists initially, but fails, and the voiceover comes on to say his wiring is catching fire but thankfully the place they are in is fire-proof as it uses Havells wiring. Using negative emotions to establish a connect is a good way to show how they can ward off danger and damage. Shakti Kapoor does well as the devious mischief-maker.

Hmm …?

What do you do in the bathroom? Wash, bathe, read, ponder and luxuriate, if you find the right ambience within to do so. HR Johnson’s ad for its bathroom fittings establishes most of these – with the help of actor Katrina Kaif. It features Kaif in a bathtub, singing languorously about how one can find answers to everything there. I could not figure out much of the song at first, I had to try and hear it several times.

I can understand the lure of a beautiful woman to sell products but this ad seemed to have more of Katrina than it did HR Johnson. I liked the shots of the water falling from the shower, though.

Insightful effort

Now this ad is not as pretty as the other ads I’ve mentioned here, but is very effective because of that very reason. There’s this man who has bouts of acidity and emits burps that burn holes in his newspaper, his tablecloth and re-ignite the candles on his child’s birthday cake after she has blown them out, embarrassing himself and his family. In comes Dabur Pudin Hara’s ‘fire engine’ for the stomach, and settles it with its ‘lemony fizz’ soldiers who put out the fire.

The actor did a good job of looking uncomfortable and so did his family. The ad, made by DDB Mudra, does a good job of using both the physical and social consequences of acidity to make its point.

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