There is intellectual bankruptcy, moral bankruptcy, spiritual bankruptcy. I thought I would use my 70th post to rant about creative bankruptcy.
Way back when we had only Doordarshan by way of television entertainment, we eagerly waited for the commercials as much as the 'sponsored network programmes'. Some of the ads were so well crafted that I still remember their tag lines. Remember 'Neighbours' Envy, Owners' Pride' and the devil in Onida? Or 'If you have the inclination, we have the time' from HMT? My favourite was the Tata Steel ad with the tag line ' Ispat bhi hum banate hain' (we also make steel). The English versions had these sub tags like 'We make champions....we also make steel' and 'We make the nation's dreams come true....we also make steel'. Made me swell with pride for sure! I found the hindi version on youtube. Take a look:
Some of the commercials were not that great. But the jingles were very catchy. Here's the well known tune from Lifebouy:
What I'm getting at is that the product and the commercial were distinct. There was either a tag line or a jingle which you could immediately associate with the product. And it was total recall after that. Look at me, its been nearly 2 decades, and I still remember the ads with fondness.
These days, we have only sad excuses for commercials. It seems that creative juices among ad agencies have totally dried up. To the extent that the best they can come up with are stylised remixes of old Bollywood numbers. The worst offender is of course Coca Cola. The last 3 commercials they ran, all had rehashed, remixed Hindi songs. Here they are in no particular order:
The Diwali ad - song ripped off: Jaata Kahan Hai Diwane (Movie: CID)
The Invisible Bottle - song ripped off: Tum Jo Mil Gaye Ho (Movie: Hanste Zakham)
The Shadow ad - song ripped off: Aaj Ki Raat (Movie: Anamika)
The Brrr Commercial - song ripped off: Yeh Ladka Zara Sa (Movie: Love Story)
Not to put Coca Cola too much in the dock, here's another, from Moods Condoms. This one is really dreadful. The original from the movie Amar Prem is a Kishore Kumar classic. Rajesh Khanna brings out rueful disillusionment and acceptance of heartbreak so beautifully. And to use it in a condom ad?! Is there a correlation there?
Seriously! Is creativity dead? Back in my day - the pre mobile, pre internet and pre satellite tv days - we could put together better commercials in an event called 'Ad Zap' at college festivals! And we weren't even studying advertising.
Viewer / customer tastes have changed no doubt. And people's attention spans have shrunk. Maybe it is just that ad agencies think viewers' tastes have sunk so low that only some Bollywood connection can revive it. What a tragedy. Think of the joy of the Hamara Bajaj commercial and compare it to the hermaphrodite type model of the Aaj Ki Raat Coke commercial. Sigh! What a fall there has been my countrymen.
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It was a different era. Different times. Simpler people and less commercialism. The country still mattered and there was something original that was Indian( no folks I am not being jingoistic).Now it is just a market place with the confusion and the madness that goes by way of creativity.
And, then there were ads like Hamara Bajaj and Raymonds, the complete man since 1925... I was a small kid back then yet I can easily recall all of them, such was the charisma of those jingles.
Still, the Sir ji jingle of Idea Cellular and Jaago re campaign of Tata Tea to name few have chosen to be more realistic and thus close to the customer heart.
This is an era of copy, remix and paste and we have to swallow it whether we like it or not...
We do remember those ads fondly because there was also much less media exposure along with some brilliant campaigns. Have you seen some of the Pepsi ads for the World Cup -- they are brilliant, the Atithi Devo Bhava campaign, Jaago Re series of ads, even the Idea, Get Idea and the previous ones with Abhishek, The Hutch campaign with the pug and the zoo-zoos were cute too. These I recalled just off the hat. I even liked the Aditya Birla series of ads too. So, I guess that ads might change in style but appealing ads are still there. Also, look at the competition these days!
@Rachna: True. There are a few good ones these days. I like the 'Hindustan ka dil dekho' ad. But I still feel the bad ones are more than the good ones. And Coke is especially bad. I used to like the Aamir Khan ads they had in the past. I do not like the Idea ads. Usually dont like stuff that has AB baby in it.
... That's what too much intake of vitamin M does...
Then you are just like my hubby, he hates AB baby too :). I feel ads is the only place where Abhishek is good :).
Hey Roshmi! Good to see you here after a long gap. How's the little one doing? BTW what is vitamin M? Forgive me, but I am a little slow in these matters.
Rachna: I think your husband has good judgment! :))
The little one is growing up fast... and is no longer toothless :)
The other day... I had kept a few books (Tagore's Gitanjali, a children's book and another paperback) on the bed... diagonally opp. to where my baby was. Away from his reach, that is. He simply looked at me... then pulled the bed sheet and all the books were within his reach in no time. He then turned to me, gave the most divine smile before picking up Tagore's Gitanjali... and tried to make a meal of it :) :) :)
P.S. Vitamin M is the injection which stirs everything to life in India. Files sprout wings; people get tatkal service even in hospitals, etc. etc. I'm sure you can fill in the blanks now. What??
@ Roshmi: Could it be money I wonder?! :))
By the way, your aspirations for your child are very apparent from what you've written! So you want him to become a Nobel laureate for literature!
We do remember those ads fondly because there was also much less media exposure along with some brilliant campaigns. Have you seen some of the Pepsi ads for the World Cup -- they are brilliant, the Atithi Devo Bhava campaign, Jaago Re series of ads, even the Idea, Get Idea and the previous ones with Abhishek, The Hutch campaign with the pug and the zoo-zoos were cute too. These I recalled just off the hat. I even liked the Aditya Birla series of ads too. So, I guess that ads might change in style but appealing ads are still there. Also, look at the competition these days!