On Various Things: From advertising to football.

Close to 4 years ago internet began growing rapidly reaching almost every household and college in India. Before that Advertising was through only one medium for the vast majority of its effectiveness. Television. You could simply not watch television to avoid their almost subliminal effects on your minds. Now however, with very sharp marketing managers with global exposures are thinking and working out their strategies (yes, strategies, since those 30 seconds on TV are sadly not the only things that they rely on these days) we are truly unaware of what we are faced with. I wished I could say "fighting" in place of "faced with" because we hardly are. It is almost like we are bent over. Without our knowledge of the fact, I might add. I had the good fortune of realising and feeling an advertising's effect on me. Cadbury has decided to step up its brand Gems' market share by starting with new innovative ads. Watching TV even for a limited time as I do since I am stuck to the computer for most of my time, I almost doubled back on catching the slightest of glimpses of the familiar box (the smallest side of the rectangular parallelopiped that too) and thankfully checked myself. Thankfully not because Gems is particularly harmful but I want to buy Gems when I want to eat them, not because there is an imprint of it's ad in my brain that tugs on the want center. An imprint that I don't want, an imprint that I didn't know about till that day. Subliminal indeed.

Advertisements do not have to be innovative even. My guess is the amount of innovation required depends on the product and your marketing angle. Launching something new or launching your product in an incredibly tight competition requires them managers to put on their thinking caps. Well ask the creative agents to do it for them probably. But when you have a large share of the market already, you probably won't waste your money on creativity. For creativity must needs come at a cost. Already have a major share? Bombard them with uncreative half-ass haphazard ads that shout out your product's name 10 times in 30 seconds just to keep people buying it like robots. Whether you need it or not. Take Cola ads for instance. Do you need to drink Cola? No. In India you'll get approximately 30 different drinks healthier (and cheaper!) than your cola. But nooooooo! We have to drink it for a complex web of reasons. To appear cooler, it tastes good, a false feeling of satisfaction because we see the likes of Sachin sighing in satisfaction and smacking his lips after a sip. Sachin, yes. The enigma. The God for Indian cricket lovers. If you haven't seen that brilliantly diabolical, guaranteed to be effective, brain surgery without operation of an ad of Cola count yourself lucky. It shows an arid desert area. The voice (don't get me started on that I have my Hyde-like theories on that smooth silky son of a gun of a voice that narrates straight into your head without resistance) tells you the details 42 deg C temperature, no caps, no shoes, no coin for toss, no real kit, make shift stumps, an abandoned truck for pavillion, an old battered aluminium can for drums, dirtied kids in old battered clothes but their faces lit up with smiles and here's where they've scored the first master stroke- cricket, yeh khel nahi, yeh zameen ki sacchi khushi hai (no real time provided to really think what this has got to do with anything, let alone cola, if anybody would bother thinking that is. Cricket is religion and religion, well for the most part is anti-thinking. Genius, sheer genius) and the second master stroke is the Little Master himself (switching brands apparently, another mini master stroke. I had to be reminded that he used to be with Pepsi. Memory is fickle, they've used it to their advantage) pulling out a bottle from the ice cooler (probably another thing, they've shown the smaller bottle, they've reduced its volume keeping the price same, and anyway smaller products have more margin. diseconomies of small scale) sipping it and saying khelte raho khush raho. Of course few people would have anything bad left to say from the little guilt of the first master stroke. If they really don't have coins for a toss, well I guess the ad suggests that they should satisfy themselves by just looking at Sachin drinking it. While for the rest who can indeed afford 10 rs, well go for it! Sachin says so. If Bhagwan Shiva came down from heavens sipping cola and encouraging you to do so, and not question whether it makes sense or not, would you then question Him? Of course not! We are not atheists now are we. Sit with your pudgy bellies and watch these good kids sweat it out on the telly if you have to. CocaCola will be saying, doesn't matter, increased sales! Other Cola ads are equally appalling, those cheesy tacky ads of Mountain Dew. I'd sooner believe I'd find Jadoo in my backyard saying Dhoop Dhoop than those stupid waste of time and money. But it is not about being rational now is it? Having a connection with the product at hand even seems to be uncool these days. I would look the Axe outrage of an ad in the eye and say ok, they've at least exaggerated some connection (albeit the thinnest one. Deodorants are expected to rid you of sweat odour first and foremost). But Coke, come on seriously? But these are good ads, strictly from the point of view of the company. I'm willing to bet my left ass that Coca Cola sales and profits have shot up since this ad came on air. I'd go ahead and safely bet even my right one that much of the increase comes from the 200ml bottles. Who am I to dissect an ad when I feel the ad working on my own educated and aware ass and do nothing but mutely and willingly bend over? I find this phrase coming up more and more often- unless you have been living in a cave you'd know falana falana. All of a sudden it doesn't seem like a bad idea.

Woah! look at that, I didn't even get to football and I'm not done ranting on advertising still. Bourneville. Fine elite brother of our beloved Cadbury's Dairy Milk. Dairy Milk also upped the ante by going on air with pseudo emotional bullshit of kuch meetha ho jaye. They're probably pointing their fingers at us and laughing their asses off right now. Such gullible folks, throw shit at them laced with emotions, family ties and cliched music and they swallow it hook, line and sinker. Now I'm not here pretending I'm some ultra aware sage-like guru who has complete control over his mind. Of course I've bought loads more of Cadbury since I saw those ads during Kaun Banega Crorepati just like you all did. All right coming to bourneville, some snooty British ass in his polished accent, accepts or dismisses Ghana cocoa beans on whether they are fit to become a Bourneville one day, with locals looking at this Judgement day classification of cocoa beans with a mixture of fear and awe. "He'll be a Bourneville one day" is good and all but the question of what happens to the dismissed beans goes begging. They have not said anything about their pickiness when it comes to dairymilk, does it mean that the bean that is so imperiously brushed off as "he's nothing" becomes a Dairymilk? Their motive is plain and simple, they are not aiming for making Bourneville the Gucci of chocolates, they just want you to bear in mind that there is a more expensive, and therefore associated with more status, brand of chocolate that you can buy. Job done. Do advertising colleges teach you to do just that? Be ruthless, do anything, dance around naked if that's what it takes to grab attention and imprint on our minds that we must buy these products the moment we set our eyes on them? I don't think so. It just comes in the new generations. They emulate their peers and competitors. For the most part, money is the only driver, and these are the richest buses. Not ironically. I pray to God that you and me have the courage to look a Coke bottle in the eye and say, not this time, no, not this time. I'm not saying we need to deprive us of everything that is shown in adverts even if it is a daily essential commodity, I'm just saying we need to be aware as we have no idea how powerful our minds are and they might have a slightly better idea..

"The Dark Arts are many, varied, ever-changing and eternal. Fighting them is like fighting a many-headed monster, which, each time a neck is severed, sprouts a head even fiercer and cleverer than before. You are fighting that which is unfixed, mutating, indestructible." 

Overkill, maybe, but definitely relevant.