Friday, August 25, 2006

Commercial Break

The field of advertising is often characterized by superb imagination. But even in this field banalities rule. Last night, while I was channel-hopping, I found the following laws to be relevant to TV ads across cultures and nations.

° Toothpaste ads shall feature fictitious dental organisations (with ridiculous names) vouching for their favourite brand.

° The effectiveness of sanitary napkins shall always be illustrated by the use of blue ink.

° Detergent ads shall employ the services of B-grade celebrities knocking on the houses of very bad actors who are trying their best to look like unsuspecting house wives. The detergent shall always be used to remove ketchup stains.

° Users of shaving creams, razors or after-shaves shall be so obsessed with feeling their own glazed cheeks, they shall not even notice the hot babes clinging on to them.

° Animated chicken shall persuade people to eat their eggs.

° Boys who consume health drinks shall jump over fences to prove that those nutrients really help. Girls shall engage in a more mental activity, such as solving jigsaw puzzles, to prove the same point.

° Contraceptives shall have grossly exaggerated aphrodisiacal effects.

° Shampoo ads shall blatantly ignore populous demographics such as curly haired men or short haired women.

7 comments:

Swathi Sambhani aka Chimera said...

great observations, find myself nodding at the last two :)

what 'bout the swiss write-up, common u gotta save my nails (waiting with nail-biting eagerness n all that ...)

Shruthi said...

Just a minute... I thought you were in Belgium.. do you get to watch Indian channels there, or are you talking of Belgian ads here? :D
It's amazing how correct you are in your observations! That shaving cream one takes the cake :D

Viky said...

Haha...you got me smiling all the way...

Crouching Tigress said...

Bwhaha!

Jax said...

Hehe...And the animated germs in my teeth are "so cuuute ya" material.

Deepak said...

@swathi: dankeschoen!

@shruthi: The only indian channel I get to watch is some UK channel which plays raunchy indi-pop numbers, which is always on display at the gujju uncle's store here. All these observations are based on belgianTV ads.

@viky: Thanks man.

@jax: thats true. Belgian germs look like pacman characters too!

Emma Blowgun said...

I work in advertising and have always especially wondered about the blue ink on sanitary napkins and ketchup stains on school children's shirts. Surely it would make more sense for the blue ink to be on white shirts and ketchup on sanitary napkins.

Man I am totally gross.