I have been one of those who has cribbed about the slow 3G speeds we have. So I watched the “Speed is good” campaign from Vodafone with great interest. First, I loved the ‘Haircut’ film created by Rajiv Rao and his team at Ogilvy & Mather. The child is given a spiky haircut and doesn’t stop screaming all the way home. Mommy sends pictures of the screaming kid to daddy. The kiddo walks into the home screaming till he sees daddy standing there with the same spiky haircut. The look on the face of the tot is priceless. While the super talks about sending pictures faster, the very human touch that came with the fine acting on the part of the kid really made the film for me. And with the IPL, O&M has taken the same concept further and has a TC commercial (TVC) where a babe-in-arms is bawling as mom stands in a long queue. A young man behind downloads a cartoon video in a flash, and shows it to the kid who, mesmerised by the cartoon, stops crying. Welcome to the world of kids stupefied by video-on-the-move. Till now we had these caricatures sitting frozen in time at home, before the TV set. Now they will be lost in the creative excellence of film 24/7. Look out for more bespectacled kids in the future! And what’s with these foreign locales and foreigners in Vodafone films? Am I missing something? I recall the series in some Italian-looking village. Now we have some obviously white Caucasian queue. Are we supposed to think that what’s good for an international audience is good for us? Or is there any other logic?

Campaign with promise

Advertising for jewellery companies has been hitting new highs. I guess it could be one indicator of optimism in the economy. If you have any other reason, please let me know. Now comes a campaign from Tanishq which is refreshingly different. Created by Lowe Lintas Bengaluru, it has four TVCs each with a statement from one of their employees located in four cities. The setting is simple: The store itself. There is just one frame: The employee at a work station speaking into the camera. Each film has an employee speaking about one aspect of what Tanishq promises – purity, greater value, best value for exchange and transparency. The simplicity of the creative expression is really quite wonderful. And very effective. It comes across as very honest. Nothing cutesy here, just telling it as it is. And quite honestly beats the hell out of having a big celebrity endorse jewellery. And the films all end with the line that these are aspects that you, the customer, gives importance to. And I’m sure this will be an inspiring message to their employees as well.

A 30-year anniversary

Time is an odd thing. You never realise how it flies as long as you are busy or enjoying yourself. Otherwise every minute is a drudge. I really never realised that washing machines have been around for three decades in India. Being in the age group where one can vividly remember the pre-washing machine era, I was pleasantly surprised to note that Videocon was the first company to introduce washing machines in India. In fact, I can also remember the jingle but cannot remember their TVCs at all, for some reason. Maybe a good ditty, repeated often enough, takes root in your mind. Anyway, the TVC is a good watch. Maybe the acting of the many actors who portray moments in everyday life where your clothes could get stained is not uniformly good, but the central idea and the song elevate the TVC into something that has repeat value. I liked the scene where this man in white clothes successfully evades all the crossfire of colours on a ‘Holi’ day but is swamped by coloured water from the inmates of his own house. And the nicest thing about the song was that though it is a fresh effort, they have woven in the old tune of the earlier jingle very well. So for the new audience you have a nice song, and for the rest you have a tadka of nostalgia as well.

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.

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

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