A very beautiful woman in bold strides walks through a hotellobby with a Cheetah on a leash and the lobby concierge with a nervous smiletells her “we got your popular version ready.” This might be a CNN ad. Thewoman disdainfully responds ‘I don’t do popular version.’ Within seconds, boththe head turner cheetah and the beautiful woman, again walk through the lobby…and the same commercial repeats five times consecutively. The surprise and novelty of the commercialwas endearing, intriguing and memorable.
Expectedly, come countless commercials in loops, like adisease that’s come into vogue recently just like FOGG, DENVER, PAYTM and other advertisedgoodies, ad nauseum, eating up Tata Sky airtime wholesale. Novel and intriguing ad, that first one, whenthe imperious woman grabs attention that sticks like glue. It made a place inmy head and heart as a memory. But, ofcourse, a deluge of copycat ADMEN with their commercials minted overnight aredoing consecutive reruns n times until you almost throw up. I nearly did one time when a paraplegicoctopus in the company of a venerated Amitabh Bachhan is selling Dr. Fix-Itwater proofing something. If I caught that visual inadvertently in myperipheral vision butterflies started to swim in my stomach. The picture of thebeautiful woman would come back to me and ask why are admen such shamefacedcopycats? Not only do they copyconcepts; also, techniques. And they don’t even do it deftly. Graphics are shoddy, crowded, noisy, withoutsense of space. Colors are loud andgarish taking their cue from religious symbology; concepts, unfailingly, teeteraround mannerisms of actor’s familiar Bollywood persona. In other words,product is subliminally underpinned and encumbered by an overbearing andunneeded celluloid image that upends the product, because larger than lifeactor has become larger than advertised product.
Why is hard work, imagination and well- rounded creativityan anathema to film and advertising workforce. New breed of Models (mostlyactors) must disavow addiction to familiar milieu of film and raise theirambition to be beside themselves and, say, depict a hot dog by just standingupright and still and tip head to left or right. Robin Williams did itsuccessfully. If he could do it so can aBombay actor. Isn’t height of an actor’s ambition to be beside himself… to besomething other than himself, i.e., a hot dog. Alternatively, improvise andenhance a product just so advertising transmits message with a laser focus. For actors it shouldn’t be about money. Theyare not worshipper of poverty. Are you? You have enough?
In the evening of your life why don’t you do it for ambitionand adapt to the product. Enrich the’commercial’ maker with skills that draw from experience. They are really badwith acoustics and audio engineering despite baritone, alto-, or mezzo ofvoiceovers. Forget about your mannerism,tick and muscle twitch, teach them how to record audio without lettingsurrounding noise kill it. Just do it.
The commercial is a different beast. But you can parley parts of your filmexperience into helping lift advertising standards.
Charlie Chaplin developed some techniques in cinematographywhen forced to invent to save his foot from a descending axe during a shoot.Don’t turn eye candy into eye fatigue with excess such as nauseatingreruns.
A chateaubriand steak will taste like gristle and wine likewater with such advertising alchemists. When will they ever learn?
DENVER is a perfume,not a cologne, to SRK, but who cares. Educated though, SRK is not fashionista enough to know the nuances ofcologne and perfume. As the new god ofthings IPL, let’s let him gloat in his advertising wisdom, ‘preparation comesbefore success’ because it is so “even in the dictionary” he tells us in an emotionallycharged hiss when he sells us Denver, the ‘perfume,’ and not cologne.” Hiss or lisp, the intonation or inflexion ofthose words is so unnaturally subsonic that SRK has a small chest and that’subsonic’ has a different set of rules in vocalization. It’s about registersnot accents. Result: Vocalamity. ‘Evendictionary says so’ is a part of such vocalamity. Voice and accent are a part of SRK’s message.Where was the audio engineer? Where wasthe audio engineer when octopus Sharmaji purrs like a bullfrog sickening enoughto give headache to an advil. Copywriters’ imaginings or mnemonic associationsof sound are beyond disgusting if you controlled the product quality. Even uglySharmaji withdraws shamefaced into his shell leaving Big B by himself to lordover his terrestrial ecosystem.
Indian media planners copy even excessive sickness as ifthat were something fashionable. Firstthere is eye candy and then comes eye fatigue in short order.
Eye fatigue could well be another name for DAVP…Departmentof Audio Visual Promotion. It’s a kindof govt. fund for compliant publications that DAVP subsidizes. DAVP supporthelps publications like this present one keep its head above water. If publication doesn’t comply it will die ofmalnutrition. In my long innings injournalism I have known many who did diebecause they didn’t comply. Usually govtadvertising to publications comes in any shape, form or manner but bulk of itis as legal tender. At the Statesmanduring my tenure nearer the helm, I used to see a lot of State TradingCorporation (STC) tenders.
Facebook has all the records. With 5G most of IOT devices that willpiggybank on Fiber optic cable networks most of them will be hackable. Imagine Amazon and google in that hackablespace it would be hard to short circuit concerted attempts at data breachesetc.