Have you seen the latest ad for Virgin Mobiles? Isn’t it great fun to watch? When I saw it, I could not help thinking that advertisements on television have received a major face-lift in apna Hindustan. There was a time when most ads lacked creativity, just talked about the product and left it at that. Some of them had such inane concepts that it ended up being irritating. You do find these advertisements even in the present times but today you also have many ad-makers who believe in telling a story and that too, a humorous one.

 

So, you have the mentos ad where the chimpanzee is lugging the donkey around. The chimp discovers a mentos and swallows it. The qualities of mentos helps in galvanizing the whole evolution process and the chimp emerges as an intelligent human being who loses no time in enslaving the donkey. As they say, ‘mentos- dimaag ki batti jalaye’.

 

Or take another mentos ad where a student arrives late for class and is asked to leave by his professor. After having mentos, the student comes up with the idea of walking backwards from the door when the teacher is occupied with the blackboard. This gives the impression that he is trying to bunk class whereby the professor promptly gives him a curt instruction to resume his seat. Very funny.

 

For those who have not seen the latest ad for Virgin mobiles, here is how it goes. A young girl reveals to her parents that she has homosexual tendencies and is not interested in guys. The parents are shocked and when a boyfriend calls after some time asking the girl to go to Goa with him, they actively encourage her to do so. Thus, with her smart move the girl has achieved her objective of going on a romantic vacation with her boyfriend and that too, with the permission of her parents. I found this one very cheeky and humorous. (Let me apologize to all the people who are homosexually orientated here. I think there is no problem with homosexuality and so, no offence meant here, please.)

 

Another ad that I really like is the one where an old man is walking along a deserted road. He suddenly finds a 500 rupee note lying on the ground. He seems to be in two minds about what his next action should be. For a moment, he tries to bend over as to pick it up and then his nobler nature seems to surface and he moves on without looking at it. At this juncture, you are about to assume that it is a social service message of some kind, but what do you find? It is actually an advertisement for a pain-relieving balm( I don’t remember which one, exactly). If the old man had not suffered from back-ache, he could easily have had the note is the moral of this story. J

 

My loss of memory with regard to the product being advertised here raises another question with these new story advertisements. Is there a possibility that you are so taken up by the story the ad tells that you overlook the product that is being advertised? I think this is one potential drawback of ads that are so interesting. Even with the virgin mobile ad, I was laughing so hard by the end of the ad that I forgot which product it was all about and had to actually ask a friend about it. In which case, is it advisable to stick to the earlier methods and avoid the clever new ones?

 

As a viewer, I beseech you not to do anything of the kind and come up with as many great ideas as you can. Watching advertisements might then turn out to be more worth while than watching the kind of crap that we are subjected to. What do you think?