My favorite advertisements

There was a time when I secretly desired to enter the field of creative marketing and advertising. I thought I had it in me to become a copyrighter and churn out witty dialogues.... Well I just channeled this energy during the spoof-scripting sessions while at college and they were really funny.

So while I sometimes wonder what would have been had I majored in Literature and gone to MICA or probably even gone to FTII and learnt script writing, maybe life would've been different! It would surely have been a lot of fun! Yeah yeah, I know behind the fun is a lot of hard work - but I would have loved it.

I don't know if I have the courage to switch careers now, I love my current profession equally. My only grouse is that it leaves me drained at the end of the day - emotionally more than physically. But the challenge is to be able to wake up next morning and be ready to be surrounded yet again by blood, urine, shit and vomit! :)

So anyway, I was just lamenting at the lack of good advertisements in the recent past... Youngistan didn't go down well with me. Akshay Kumar's Thums Up ads have become passe. Have these advertising honchos lost their gift - why have they reduced their creative gimmicks to a tit-for-tat in the Pepsi v/s Coca-cola v/s Thums Up war? Where's yaaron da tashan? Yeh dil maange more.

I can never forget the horror of Vivek Oberoi going 'wakao' or the utterly distasteful 'toyenge' ad for some brand of men's briefs that's currently on air. Give me Lalitaji anyday!

I think among my favorite ads would be in no particular order:

The Ericsson mobile phone ad : The "One Black Coffee Please"

Dhara oil : "Jalebi"

Cadbury's: "The girlfriend dancing and prancing away to glory on the cricket field after her love makes a century"

Titan: Almost all their ads... in fact the last one with Aamir Khan and Meera Vasudevan was damn cute.

Pepsi: The one with Aamir Khan, Aishwarya Rai and Mahima...err Ritu Chowdhury

All the Johnsons' baby oils... or just about any advt to do with babies (my maternal instincts spring alive!)

The Airtel ad: The B/W ad with confessions, expressions.... etc ..... "Express Yourself". We hijacked this theme for the introduction of our convocation skit. :)

ALL FEVICOL ADS!

This Camlin marker ad that I've only seen on Youtube: About the rudaalis not being able to take a widow's sindoor off bcos it was marked with a Camlin marker.... and so her husband suddenly gets a fresh breath of life! Hilarious.

And the Maggi Hot & Sweet Chilly Sauce, it's different ads!

These are all I think of now. I am sure there are others that captured my imagination but for some reason are not on the top of my mind now.

In one of my earlier posts, I said that the late nineties were not a good time for Western music. But I think Indian Advertising flourished during this period. Of course we were witnessing the 'free market invasion' in our otherwise socialist territory... But it was a good period. Some of the best creative minds came together and created 20 second livewire art.

I am looking forward to another brilliant advertisement ... I hope it comes soon.