Advertisements. Then and Now.

                Advertisements are so much important nowadays. It’s impossible to sell anything without advertisements when competitions are all around. If you’re selling your product without any advertisement, then you are really very lucky I must say. But I do not believe, you are actually doing it. From a pin to plane, we have to watch advertisement whether we like it or not. They are in newspaper, on TV, on a radio, or on the large hording. In short, we are surrounded with advertisements.

                The very famous ad film was made in end of 80’s of a refined oil names Dhara. A cute little kid is sad and leaving home. He goes to the station and old uncle arrives. He explains the kid that he is leaving home but his mother has made hot Jalebies at home. The little kid changes her mind and returned home with the old uncle. And the lady sings…..

“Dhara dhara…Shudhha Dhara…(Followed by the sounds of jingle bells)

Kid in DHARA's Ad

 You must have seen this ad film. If not, tell me, I will send you through my WhatsApp. This was the golden period for the advertisements. Actually those nostalgic ads were so cute and never disturbed us. When we saw those ads, we actually enjoy them even more than the programs. And you know, the effect too, was pretty positive that people also approached those products. In a cute way, those ads did their job for their products. It was when the TV channels were not on air except the Doordarshan.

                Then we entered in 90’s when we started receiving the Zee TV. Soon we got Sony, later the Star and today, there are numbers of channels. Like Raju Srivastava says,” We have channels starting from each letter of the ABC.” He is right and that is the reason why the market of the advertisement has been quite broader today.  The competition is seen on the TV, Newspapers and Stickers etc. But has it been the right way to promote items? It’s 2013 now and India has been so much advanced. It has almost adopted the western culture nowadays and so the advertisements have done the same. When a motorcycle ad was shown how it was used to be helpful for daily activities at home, now it is shown how it can be useful to take girlfriends for outing. See the latest Hero Passion’s ad, a bride is stuck in her car in heavy traffic somewhere and her groom decides to go and take her on his bike wearing helmet. The man is still unknown to her when she gets down at the marriage function and she immediately proposes him,

“Will you marry me?”

When he takes off his helmet, she finds her real groom and he picks her up. So this is what we are seeing nowadays other than those nostalgic ads back in 1990. If a woman’s mind is changed after a ride of just few minutes, we can easily say what type of love she had for her man. Well I also possess the same bike. If I will ask any bride to come with me on my Passion bike instead of her car, she may not propose me, but definitely she will slap me twice in front of huge crowd. This is just a single example. When we go through many, we will get to know the difference how we are being served fake, nudity, lies and fraud in the form of advertisements. Not only us, but well known people are being cheated with those fake advertisements. See recently the bollywood star Akshaye Khanna lost 50 Lakhs rupees. So no wonder if tomorrow, you can be also a victim of this fraud. After all we are all a part of this advertisement chain.

Advertisements… Where man is a medium and woman is an object.

                Few days ago, the Thane Mayor implemented new rule about the mannequins. According to her, these mannequins spread nudity and people see them as sexual objects. She ordered all the retailers to take mannequins and keep them at such place in their store where the people cannot see them.

A mother and daughter passing by the mannequins in Mumbai

She further instructed not to sell women undergarments on roads which are seen almost in every part of Mumbai. As they are cheap and good in quality, many women may approach them without hesitation. This doesn’t justify a woman, an object. It happens when I start my day early morning. When I buy my favorite news paper, I find a woman standing in bra and panties on a very first page making an ad of female undergarments. I feel pretty uncomfortable and I immediately turn the page and find another woman in the same condition which I saw on the first. See how one advertisement helps,

·         It will increase the sale of a newspaper

·         Women won’t see because they are already happier with the Brands they use

·         It’s a waste of money behind these advertisements.

It's my regular news paper

This is the newspaper thing. After buying it, I stare at those hording. I see an institution has given its huge ad on it. We are so cultured that we say, Education is a Saraswati and Education centre is a temple. Now to make these temples famous, they use girls with miniskirts on in order to attract people. Just in case if they see a girl, they might see why the girl is standing there. And it is repeated in the local train also, for which I posted about the BABA’s stickers few days ago. This is a hording thing. Now we come to the TV where competitions between the products are most. To sell the brand of a wine, they hire the top most actresses in their advertisements. Well when a woman is a former Miss World and doing major projects, how she can be there selling wine. This is really shameful act from both ends. The advertisements on TV have crossed all the limits. The ads have been much seductive enough to attract the people’s attention. You must have seen those Deo’s ad which is simply lustrous. One cannot handle them. But actually the fact is that women do not like a man who has sprayed Deo and neither like a man with body order. Actually the fact is that when I see those lusty ads of Sunny Leone’s manforce condoms and those Deos ads, I find no difference between them. They are both similar. This is a TV thing.

It's a man thing. What she's doing there???

        It’s all over when we want some change in our country. But at some stage, these advertisements are too playing their major role. We cannot stop them, we can only watch them. We can only say, “What the fuck they are showing?” But the other will definitely say,” Oh! I wish it will be repeated again. She was looking damn sexy yaar.” After all we are also been the part of them.