Addendum

Addendum is a weekly column that takes a sometimes hard, sometimes casual, sometimes irreverent yet never malicious look at some of the new or recent advertisements and comments on them.

Giant recall

For years Ambuja Cements has been using the mnemonic of a larger-than-life giant holding some huge construction in his hand. If my memory serves me right, and it usually does, this was created by Trikaya before it merged with the many shades of Grey. And though the advertising for Ambuja Cements has been good, no one really thought of doing something with the giant in the logo. Enter Nakul Chopra, Bobby Pawar and his merry men at Publicis. And you now have a TVC based on a giant. The Great Khali. Fans of WWE will know him well. My son has told me all about him and even made me watch a bout where the seven-foot giant from India was bashed up. I know the fights are all pre-planned, but I was not amused. But now, I am. In fact, I had a nice chuckle watching the film for Gujarat Ambuja, something I haven’t done for some time now. What it has done is something delightful. It has taken this giant wrestler Khali and used the power of the hyperbole to show in a hilarious way what happens to a house when a giant doesn’t know his own strength. With well-edited sequences you have Khali puncturing holes in walls with his head, wrenching fixtures off their base, crashing through floors when he lifts weights and so on. The story is told in Khali’s voice, and he says he discovered Ambuja Cements and fortified his house with it after which he really discovered the joys of living at home. It ends with him banging into a wall and ending up with a hurt head. Apart from the fact that it is a well-made film and it is funny, I really like the fact that Bobby has intelligently used the giant to tie up beautifully with the mnemonic of Ambuja Cements that has been idling for so long. I give it a thumbs up.

Lost opportunity for the Army

The Indian Army has been in the news these days with retired officers fasting for what they call OROP (One Rank One Pension). While I will not go into the arguments advanced for and against OROP in its various forms, you really think this is the ideal time for the Indian Army to launch a recruitment campaign? Well, they evidently think it is, so Grey has launched a TVC that is so predictable I wondered whether I had already seen it. While the script is interesting and the visuals are obviously riveting, it’s a pity the voiceover really lets the TVC down. Not just the timbre of the voice but the way they seem to be hurrying to get to the end of the story, or may be to keep within the stipulated time limit. Whatever, that’s no excuse to take a perfectly emotive issue, one that lends itself to a great emotional, inspiring film, and hurry into something so ordinary. A lost opportunity for Grey, a pity for the Indian Army.

Online in Print

The last week has seen a huge flurry of ads in leading newspapers announcing the great online sales of Flipkart, Snapdeal and Amazon. I thumbed through eight pages before I reached the front page of my daily newspaper in Mumbai. There used to be a time not so many years ago where the front page was sacrosanct and carried only one advertisement, or with great persuasion two, with the major part of the page reserved for news. You think my advertising catalogue which I now get would ever get back to being a newspaper? Write in with your views on this phenomenon.

With the festive season giving us a huge amount of new ads, we’re giving you a new feature: Insta-reviews. The result of limited space but unlimited intention.

Publicis has a new TVC for Subway. It shows a bride-to-be and her friend indulging in some light banter to bring out the message that there is now a Sub of the Day with new fillings. Very interesting.

McCann for Lufthansa: Lovely lyrics, great acting. To highlight three avenues to light up Diwali. Very good initiative. Log on, see what you can do with Lufthansa.

O&M and IDBI Federal: Angry babies at 900 locations across the country. The idea is that the angry babies look cute now, but the scowl won’t be amusing when they grow up without Childsurance, the new scheme from IDBI General. The TVC is cute. Now.

(Ramesh Narayan is a communications consultant. Mail your comments to cat.a.lyst@thehindu.co.in )