The censor board is all set to give a ‘U’ certificate when one of its members, a man, says it deserves an A for all the nudity it contains. What nudity, questions another. The hero stripped some seven times. When a woman does it, it’s “nude”, but when a man does it, why’s he’s a “dude”, wonders the man. Hawa badlegi (times, trends, are changing), says Havells, making a point. The campaign for its fans has three other TVCs in it. One of them is a wedding reception to which a group of children from an orphanage are invited. Their guardian expresses his appreciation for the couple – donations, he says, pour in but this is the first time someone invited the children somewhere. Most of us think it’s easier to donate some money than take the time to get involved. There’s an ad touching upon conversion as well. A father is checking out the young man his daughter brings home and demands that he convert. As the daughter begins to protest and the prospective bridegroom shifts uncomfortably, the father says convert he must, not from his religion to theirs, but from being a smoker into a non-smoker. The ads span a range of emotions and make several points, something that one associates with the brand’s campaigns over the years. The ad for the South has a message about not treating menstruating girls as untouchables. Lowe Lintas has treated the ads with a light hand even as it makes several points.

Cause and effect

Doesn’t your heart begin to race when you hear an ambulance trying to make its way through the traffic? Will it make it on time for the patient to get treated, live? And when you notice everyone trying to make space to let it go through, you feel a little lighter. This everyday situation, so familiar to city-dwellers, is what DDB Mudra employs in the TVC for Gulf Oil 4T Plus. A group of seven bikers including brand ambassador MS Dhoni, Gulshan Grover, Dino Morea and other personalities from showbiz, are on a ride, coasting along the highway, when they come across an ambulance rushing to the hospital. They rev up, zooming ahead to clear the path for it and then notice it struggling to get ahead of a container truck. One of them then goes ahead to catch up with the truck and then we see the truck moving aside, clearing a path for the ambulance. It’s an interesting use of an everyday situation in cities and towns, adapted to reflect the Insta Pick-Up proposition of the product.

Bon appetit

I came across an ad for Actve Cooking, a Tata Sky channel, which highlighted something that will touch a chord with many cooking enthusiasts. Gourmet food et al is all very well, but how on earth do you get your hands on the exotic ingredients listed in those recipes? (You can, of course, in some cities today, but most of them cost an arm and a leg.) The ad resorts to stereotypes to make the point – a Westernised woman is filming a food show and a South Indian man is at his wits’ end wondering where to get hold of all that she’s saying in a city like Madurai. It’s all supposed to be a bit of slapstick and while it didn’t really make me laugh, I thought it was a good insight.

Mail your comments to cat.a.lyst@thehindu.co.in

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