Its a Mad Ad World out there!

Lately I've had the opportunity to watch quite a lot of TV and some of the things that fascinate me (and bore other people forcing them to switch channels) are the ads that come on. Interestingly its possible to understand a lot about a company's attitude from the ads they make.

For example any ad of the Indian Military branches, be it the Army, Navy, Air Force, Coast guard, etc. will always show you various cut scenes with a narrator speaking in the background about your duty to your nation and character growth and so on. A typical ad would go in this sequence:

1. Open with Enlarged logo of (insert military branch here) with large text on screen
2. Missile launch from tank/ship/fighter jet
3. Uniformed officers on a tank/ship/aeroplane
4. Some guys sitting in front of a radar screen
5. Tanks at Republic Day Parade
6. Senior officers playing polo/water polo/general team activity
7. Sukhois and IL-76 in refuelling mode
8. Cadets marching in formation with Woman heading troop
9. Close with Enlarged logo of (insert military branch here) with "Join Now" on screen.

Since nothing shown is specific, it gives the impression that of an over-bearing organisation that says "Look this is what we've got. The fact that none of these things might even involve you is irrelevent. Join now, if you want."

Of course the armed forces don't need to advertise that much in the first place, they don't want to win you over with anything. On the other hand consider the following ads that've been on TV recently. See if you can identify them.

1. This one starts of with a marriage scene at a church. The girl gets cold feet (not something you see in a lot of Indian weddings) and confesses that she doesn't want to go ahead with the marriage. Later on the guy picks up his phone, uses an app (lets call it "Dost Dhoonder") and makes his way from what looks like London, to a village somewhere in the Himalayas. He enters a classroom and there it looks like he's found the girl who jilted him at the altar, or another girl who looks just like the one who jilted him. In any case it seems that she's happy to see him (and still suffering from memory loss if she is the runaway bride). Is he meeting her to be good friends? Don't think so.

2. This is an ad for an HD-TV service provider. A lot of things seem good, there's a catchy jingle, the word HD is used repeatedly in the song so that it sticks in viewer's minds. However it unintentionally (or intentionally) seems to imply that if you watch videos in HD, you'll end up watching everything in Slow-Motion. The real kicker comes when you notice in the corner a little bit of Post-Script that says "Best Viewed in HD". If the ad itself was made in HD then what point is it if you're targetting those who don't have it in the first place!

3. This is a series of ads where a popular Bollywood actor has suddenly taken to Stand-up comedy, and the end captions are based on his acts. First of all, this guy has no stage presence, all his acts are clearly fake, even the darkened "audience" gives canned laughter. What you do see in his expressions basically says,"I can say whatever's written for me, and I'll still get the laughs and get paid". In the latest one in this series, the concept of being able to wirelessly integrate a 3G device with a router gets re-interpreted as a pelvic thrust. Unbelievable.

It seems like we have a new generation of ads coming out where you end up remembering them because they are really bad and you'd rather not have watched them in the first place. If that was the objective during their making, then the above three have definitely hit the jackpot. Unfortunately it only means that the average TV viewer will be bombarded with more poor advertising, making him/her change channels in revulsion even more often!