Sunday, January 18, 2009

Indian Television And Advertising

The recent Airtel advertisement featuring Kareena Kapoor and Saif Ali Khan makes me want to scratch Kareena's eyes right out. Just like the vast majority of her movies. She is back to her overacting and her irritating ways, on the small screen as well as on the big screen.

This makes me think of all the lovely ads the folks at Airtel have come up with in the past. Remember the first few ads that featured the theme that A. R. Rahman composed for them? There was one which featured a lot of people of all sorts, and a large choir holding candles in their hands and lighting their candles from each others'. This was about the time they came up with the tag line Express Yourself. I used to love that one. And the more recent one with two boys playing with a ball at the border. The Madhavan-Vidya Balan series was completely adorable and romantic.

There's also a bunch of Coca Cola commercials that I used to like. The one where Aishwarya and Aamir met online, or the one where Aamir donned his tapori avatar, and I think also introduced the Thanda Matlab Coca Cola punchline. I liked lots of the Aamir Khan ads, actually. Each one featured him in a new look and a new role, just like each of his movies. Speaking of Aamir and Aishwarya, these two also did a Pepsi commercial together, which, I hear, was Aishwarya's first foray into modelling. That one had a pretty interesting story line to it, if I may say so about a TV commercial.

And then there's all the stuff Abhishek Bachchan has done for Idea. The best thing about these ads is that they are cute, and also carry a social message. Like the education for all campaign. Or the more recent democracy campaign. I must admit, some of the stuff Abhishek did for idea was a little weird and not too fitting for his persona, but some of it totally rocks.

And then there are some that date back to my childhood. Can I ever forget the adorable innocence of the I Love You Rasna commercials? Or some of the earliest Cadbury's Dairy Milk ads? Speaking of innocence, there was this Dhara commercial with a little boy who wanted to run away from home and then he was told that his mom had made jalebi at home. The innocent, cute expression with which he echoed "jalebi?" was just unbeatable. We don't get to see that kind of innocence these days. Kids seem to be growing up so much faster.

Okay, now that I watched these nice videos on YouTube, I've moved past the negative vibes emanating from the Kareena ad. Now I can sleep peacefully.

5 comments:

actinium said...

interesting post...i never knew Aamir and Ash both worked together for both Pepsi and Coke at a point of time! i doubt if either of the actress' dubbed for themselves in the commercial...
as an aside, watch dis Titan commercial...i didn't knw minishaa ws dis cute :-)

Bhavya said...

Most people don't know that... because Ash wasn't a known face when she did the Pepsi thing. As with the Titan commercial you've linked to... I used to like all that one too, and I loved the jingle that featured in all the Titan ads, but I didn't know that the girl was Minishaa! Will not comment on how cute she was... such comments from me are reserved for the likes of Aamir Khan and Vivek Oberoi in the Coca Cola ads :)

Anonymous said...

The "Express Yourself" ad is perhaps the best one ever..
BTW, you may like to see this one too: Safari Lines Another of my fav ones..

Bhavya said...

Somehow I never saw that lines ad on TV. But I remember you showing it to some of us earlier on. It's a lovely ad, but doesn't really say much about the Safari, does it?

Akash said...

Obviously Airtel and Coke always come up with some OOTB ads... but sometimes the rivalry btw coke and pepsi inspire them to make some bad commercials and they get engaged in a mud-fight...

You must also have mentioned the ads of "HAMARA BAJAJ" and "HAPPY DENT", which are all time favorites. These two recognized as the best ad ever if you ask any ad-guru.

Also these days, there are some nice ads are being telecasted like ING (paisa sirf paisa nahi hai) and many others...