Advertising Opinions

I have in my earlier post ‘ Not Celebrities But Excellent Actors’ indicated my aversion for ads featuring celebrities. I may sound a bit prejudiced but as I have already pointed out in my earlier post, an overdose of celebrities makes you lose track of the products being endorsed; if a Sharukh or an Amitabh or Saif is seen endorsing every other product you tend to remember only the celebrity and not the product. I also feel a sense of loss for I miss out on the opportunity of seeing new talent, after all Priety Zinta and Genelia D’souza started off their careers with commercials. I find it particularly annoying when a self conscious performance by a celebrity in a commercial is followed by a commercial featuring talented nobodies performing with obvious gusto. Recently I did have this experience; as I was watching the commercials one day I noticed how self-conscious Abhishek Bachachan was in this Idea commercial. His gait, the manner in which he ...

The emotion of fear is used quite often in ads and in case of the CEAT bike tyre TV— Streets are filled with idiots campaign it has been used very effectively. According to me the emotion of fear, in the two commercials (Man with the pram and Crossing), has been shown in its raw form without any sugar coating; the element of shock and horror, clearly shown by the expression on the face of the bike drivers in each of the two ads, adds to the overall impact. Many years ago when I was planning to learn driving I was told that when I drive I must consider every other driver on the road to be pagal or insane and must always tell myself that I am the only sane person on the roads; in other words I was advised to be very very careful while driving. Maybe an insight of a similar kind inspired the creative minds at the agency which developed the script for these two TV commercials. Over the years I have observed that messages conveyed in tyre ads (I mean any tyre ad, not just motorcycle ty...