Unsure of Sure

I abhor the SURE deodorant ad featuring Akshay Kumar. Firstly I detest the way he sounds when he speaks throughout the advertisement. Of course I also don't understand that what kinda sand storm would blow up buildings like an atomic shock-wave but I guess that can still pass considering that it's shown to be "shooting" itself.
Next...most importantly...people people people if Sure deo's gonna stop you from sweating even at 58 degree centigrade, you really need to keep away from it. Why? Because the whole concept of antiperspirants is stupidity. We use deos to ease the smell generated (mainly in the underarms) by prolonged sweating (and if you're one who doesn't bathe regularly, your deo dosage is bound to go up substantially). Of course there are other places that smell but if you bather regularly and properly your private parts won't smell horrid and yes, they'd never smell like lavender either so just let them be what they are. When we feel hot, we perspire, it's essential that we do because it is the body's way of keeping the core temperature controlled to 37 degree centigrade. if you stop sweating, you'd basically cook yourself to death. of course I'm not saying that just stopping the sweat from underarms wouldn't cook you but understand that usually when most people apply deos they just spray it around their torso.
It's good to sweat and it's good to bather regularly. Please don't stink, use a deo but then don't go berserk following this misleading fad of anti-perspirants either.
Freaking ad mad world...they want money and they won't think twice making you unhealthy for it.

Cadbury's Bournvita

In my house, I've been the Horlick's kid and my sis has been the Bournvita kid. We've seen great ads of both the companies over the years but the new ad takes competitiveness to new heights. India's bursting with people & money and everything is becoming competitive. Understandably, this has been well depicted in the new Bournvita ad which shows two kids in a judo match. One kid get pinned down by the other and his mom watches on. In what seems to be a massive adrenalin rush, the pinned kid turns the tables on his attacker and pins him in a great comeback move. His mom smiles at him and he looks back at her like a possessed maniac while he slowly pumps his fist in the air. The voice behind says that when you prepare your kids to compete, nothing can stop them, not even you... (not even you?? why'd you stop em if you're preparing them?). I find the latter part of the ad a little weird, firstly the kid looks like a freakin psycho and secondly the words of the ad seem to be for a lion cub growing up in the African grasslands but that's ok growing up in India's very similar.

I don't like the ad but I don't dislike it either but if you put a gun to my head, I'd say it's rather avoidable. I don't understan what kinda kid judo championship would be held in India a dojo and has the kinda audience that looks like it's an Olympics match. The just the expressions on this kid and his mother are a li'll strange. It tries to portray a kind of psycho killer instinct...hey save it, he's gonna have it later in life anyway.

I have nothing against martial arts, in fact I love them. I don't have anything against bournvita either, I think it's yummy, I just don't like the ad above. Here's another bournvita ad about martial arts (karate) and is really cute:

Here's another nice bournvita ad:

The new COMPLAN advertisement

"mummy mai bada to ho raha hoon par badoonga kab" translates to "mummy I am growing up (age-wise) but when will I actually grow-up (height-wise).

Another lame kid worried about his vital stats.

In a weird race to promote their health drinks, Horlicks, Bournvita, Boost and Complan are coming up with atrocious ads that suggests that if a kid consumes their product, he/she is bound to be a constantly-charged up all-rounder or taller or stronger or sharper that his/her peers. They're using stats as a tool to promote their drinks without anyone questioning them about how they carry out these trials and how do they normalize the various groups for genetic variation for tallness. It is really sad that there's no one to question their methods and consequently use the self-generated information to promote their product.

I dislike all other ads as well but this ad by Complan really make all my body hair (oh so many) stand in irritable attention. The Stupid kid talks as if he's keeping a tab on his height:weight and genetic aspects and is disappointed with his growth which should be greater.

I think Complan ads of the yester-years, when we were kids in the 1980s and 90s weren't abhorrent where a cute little brother sister duo would compete to do difficult physical tasks and if the little sister wasn't able to, the bro would jump in and help her, with the song playing in the background "yeh hai badta baccha dekho kaisi kood lagaye, yeh hai badta baccha kapda chhota hota jaye" the ad was also shown in English and the song went something like this "He's a growing boy, look how he's shooting up. He's a growing boy his clothes are just not keeping up." and the boy hold out a cup of Complan in his hand and says "I'm a Complan boy" then his sister jumps in, elbows him gently and says "I'm a Complan girl". So it was about boy-girl equality in out son-possessed society and also about the happiness of parents watching their children grow up. Now it seems like they're competing with everything around them. I hope we don't have a Complan ad in the near future with kids trying to outgrow trees. I won't be surprised!

This is, in one way, another way of promoting lame ideas into our megalomaniac society. Everyone should be that tad bit taller, stronger, sharper and last but not least, to possess white skin.

I'm not against kids consuming health drinks, I'm against these companies promoting their products the way they are. It's doing no one any good but only adding to the muck in the heads of the nouveau-riche Indian citizen who's already bombarded with a plethora of advertisement convincing him that something is wrong with his height, his hair, his colour and his body and that all these "faults" can be mended using particular products. It's a shame because companies do nothing but cash in on the thinking of the public. They'll survey and find out what the common thinks and what the common will buy if the product is projected a certain way.

Therefore before I say the they suck (the companies), I'd say We Suck!

COMMUNITY MATRIMONY DOT COM

Mammals are known to extremely good parents, they take care of their young ones to ensure that they genes they transmitted in them are passed on successfully their offsprings and so on. Thus they say that our bodies perish but our genes live on in our children and their children. Immortality, or at least the concept, is thus accomplished in some way.
Humans take it to quite another level and chase their genes with zealot fervor. Such fanaticism about the genes that they’d disown their own offsprings and at times even exterminate them if the latter were to dare transmit the genes to an individual other than their own type or a type they consider inferior to them and thus they accrue discrimination in yet another form. This is seen around the world to some degree but none to an extent as in our motherland. How wrong it is to do so might be debatable but let us see how someone, once more, used it as a business strategy.
The advertisement starts with an old couple spotting a young girl exiting a building with a big guy with long curly hair. The two seem to be happily conversing and sit on a bike and move out from the scene. The old man watched in disbelief and inquires from his wife if the girl he just saw was someone by the name Nisha; he asks "is that our Nisha?". The old woman, alarmed as well, breaks out into flurry of sentences. Meantime there’s a decently dressed young man right behind them eavesdropping into the conversation. The old woman tells her partner that they should have consulted the “community” temple, “community” astrologer and the “community” elders. The young man behind them suggests that they should check up “community” matrimony dot com (communitymatrimony.com) as well. The old woman snubs him by saying that it would be another “dot com” but the ad goes on, in some vague way, to quickly say how useful this website would be to find partners in your community. The ad ends in the old woman resting peacefully on a chair, a big smile embellishing her face, while she looks with the contentment at the happy picture of the aforementioned “Nisha” with a decent looking guy, I can’t say if it was the same guy who suggested the website to them, in which case it made him a nifty man.
There you go, communitymatrimony.com, if you have some girl in your family who’s seeing a guy outside the “community”, you should definitely refer to this website. I do not how it would be different from shaadi.com or bharatmatrimony.com but sure there has to be some USP there.
Let us see what the ad, subliminally, enforce in one’s brain. Firstly the girl appears decently dressed and therefore, maybe even well educated. What’s wrong with the guy? He’s dressed in western outfit, has a western hairstyle (unless maybe you wanna call those hair a la aghori baba style). From his attire and appearance, he could pass for a student. That he owns a bike, also strengthens the presumption. What can possibly be presumed is that the two are seeing each other. Now according to the societal norms, a nubile-girl, again a debatable term, shouldn’t be allowed to exercise her free will to choose her partner. There are “values” that are very skillfully imbued into a girl’s psyche from a very early age. The ad underscores the fact that in our society it is not decent to have a boyfriend and be seen in public; someone’s gonna see you and you’ll bring a bad name to the family and therefore the “community”. Also that it is totally unacceptable to have a boyfriend from another “community”. Girls, when seen indulging in acts like roaming around freely with a boy, worst case scenario a boy from another community, must be married-off in earnerst. There are innumerable examples all around us of well-educated middle class, even high class families doing this. Married-off is more like disposed-off; off you go, keep our genes in our community.
The old couple shown in the ad is well dressed and conversing in English. Very smartly the ad doesn’t represent any one community as the decent well-educated old couple could belong to any “community” or religion. They’re definitely neither the filthy rich nor smelly poor, they are people who want to live in the society according to the rules laid down by the community, they’re people who educate their daughters, daughter who’ve studied with people like us, daughter who’ve been “arranged” to be married within the “community”, sometimes with, and at others without their consent. These are people who have access to the internet; these are the modern Indians.
The ad also plays to the fact that people from one community look down upon people from another community. As is shown by the fact that the “community” boy is shown to be more decently dressed, more appealing and appears to be the more acceptable of the two. They’ll sell what you want. If this is what you want, they’ll make it and make money from it.
A well-meaning ad for a society with good intentions but then did someone not say “the road to hell is paved with good intention”.