Ad Nauseam - I by Mamta

It's an all too familiar scene at the bus stop. Boy looks at girl. Girl blushes. Boy asks girl for phone number. Girl obliges - in mime. Girl's mother notices this and frowns at her. Just before boarding the bus, girl manages to convey the last digit which boy triumphantly writes down on his jeans with his ballpoint pen. What I have just been describing (in case you haven't guessed it already) is an ad for a ballpoint pen.

To misquote a popular phrase, today's world is an ad ad world. The average TV watcher unwittingly spends most of his viewing time watching more ads than actual programmes. The ad makers being shrewd creatures take full advantage of this fact. And so you have all kinds of situations and stories being conveyed within a 15 second or 45 second timeframe that is allotted to an ad. At times, these situations are so ridiculous that you end up laughing at them. But the ad makers don't mind, because the point is - you noticed it. And that's the basic philosophy behind it - to capture the viewer's attention.

Now, since a major chunk of today's consumers belong to the age group between 12 and 30, who better to serve as an icon than the current heartthrob (whoever it may be, because public opinion keeps fluctuating!)? So you see ace cricketers and glamorous movie stars exhorting you to buy such and such a product because it improves their smile or brings to their skin dewy softness, or whatever. Never mind the fact that the secret of their 'natural' beauty lies in finishing touches done abroad or that they themselves would never ever use the product they endorse. (Can you, for instance, even imagine Sunil Shetty using daanth manjan? And he endorses it!) Depending on their ingenuity, sense of originality and purpose, today's ads can be classified into the following categories:

Ad hoc: By the looks of this ad, it was probably devised and implemented on the spur of the moment - with no sign of planning or purpose. Of course the purpose was originally to promote the product, but somewhere among the visuals and breathtaking locales, it must have got lost. What effect this may have on the viewer is as yet unknown. An opinion poll has been planned shortly to ascertain whether or not viewers remember the name of product after watching the ad.

Ad interim: This is the ad that the viewer happens to watch when his fingers are tired from punching the remote buttons and he is temporarily seeking a respite from switching channels. Depending upon his level of tiredness and concentration, he may or may not remember the name of the product.

Ad persona: An ad that takes a dig at the personal lives of celebrities, where ad makers come up with wonderful spoofs of actual situation. For instance, to promote a new brand of perfume/deo, there was an ad that featured a spoof on a famous Indian painter who is obsessed with a Bollywood actress.

Ad infinitum: This is the improvised version of an ad that has seen better days (and better viewers). The old one was probably so successful that the ad filmwallahs have made it their standard mantra. And so the poor viewers are forced to watch the same old ad again and again, albeit in a better form. So, while earlier we had only Lalitaji to contend with, today we have Devikaji, Manishaji and hordes of other behenjis.

Ad nauseam: This is the ad that makes the viewer sick to the stomach. Perhaps it was designed keeping a particular type of viewer in mind, but to the rest of the crowd it seems horrendous. Most of today's advertisements fall into this category.

To be continued...