LIGHTS… CAMERA… IMPRESS!

On a sultry Sunday afternoon, as my lazy eyes move over the television screen completely devoid of any interest, suddenly a spark goes off in my mind. The eyes lose their laziness and opinions start flooding my head at the sight of an advertisement. One thing common to all TV channels, be it a sports channel or a news channel, is the famous “short commercial break”. The advertisers have done it all – pins, pens, paints, pants… what not?

Sometimes the ads are more engaging than the actual program. It is indeed interesting to see how the hero of the ad overcomes hurdles that include street dogs, children playing on the streets, barbed wires and manages to outrun the bad boys chasing him to spectacularly save his soft drink bottle. All this is accomplished within a maximum of 60 seconds which earns the ads more points and fans. The swift movements of the actors coupled with the energetic jingle in the background pronounce the ads as surefire successes. It’s not just the foot-tapping ads that are well received. The soft, thought-provoking ones stand long in the minds of viewers. If the ad happens to feature a child between the age of 3 and 7 – fans assured. It doesn’t just have to be children. Large animate cartoon-like characters speaking a made-up language not even the director can understand are all the rage now. And to turn this adorable creature into a superhero all one has to do is tie a red cape around its neck and make use of advanced animation programs to make it fly around the world saving people. Audience impressed! Sales hiked! Manager happy!

The truth is that viewers don’t know what ads they want. It all lies in the hands of the ad-maker to get the desired response from the audience. And that response is not going to be obtained by following the old beaten track. Generation after generation of steel and cement companies have claimed to be the strongest. All of their ads sport the same old dilapidated house which after renovation is nothing less than Taj Mahal II. All the construction material ads are so similar it is a Herculean task to tell one from the other.

Ads that don’t tell the viewer anything about the product are of little help too. The ad where the wife breaks into complicated brigas of classical music trying to provide competition to her husband’s guitar has as much connection to cooking oil as Aryabhata to rock music. Quite frankly, an ad that has nothing to say about its product will hardly gain a shred of seriousness or respect from the viewers. 

Advertisements are a means of connecting with the common man and making him understand that the producers know what his needs and wants are. So, it is extremely important that the advertisers make wise use of their chance to capture the viewer’s heart. Though ads do annoy us viewers now and then by interfering with our TV shows and movies, we have to sit through them because for the sponsors – har ek ad jaroori hota hai!