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.

Google has a new app for everything related to cricket search. And Lowe Lintas has two adorable films to promote this app. One shows how a hand-painted jersey of a little tot gets spoilt by the rain but the father searches with his app and replaces the jersey in time for the outing. A good performance by the little boy makes the film. But my favourite was the way the other film shows our obsession with cricket. A couple buy two apples at a supermarket. When the young lady asks “How much?”, the cashier tells her hundred for two. While the lady is shocked at what she thinks is the price, her husband says, “I thought it would be at least 120 for 2.” The banter continues, drawing in a third person, all centred on the score of the match being played, much to the consternation of the lady who doesn’t quite get it. Her expressions when she doesn’t, and when she does, really made the film for me. The way people in India think when a match is going on, the way they naturally get into conversations and bond with strangers are all captured with great direction, superb acting by the lady and a tight script. Lintas, take a bow!

Greed is good

So what’s the flavour of the season? Rooh Afza or Maaza? Neither. It’s greed. We recently wrote that Maaza was re-positioning greed as a good thing in the TVC where Varun Dhawan plays the roles of twin brothers. Well, surprise surprise! The idea is not the monopoly of the Coca-Cola Company. Hamdard has decided that it’s a great idea as well. So in the new push for its legacy brand Rooh Afza, it has a four-minute digital offering with a slew of variants all positioning greed as something that can be very good if seen as a passion. So they have a series of little stories which range from a little boy climbing a tree to get his second kite, positioning him as a possible mountaineer, to a young man throwing a rose stem straight into the hair of the girl he fancies, as a possible archer. Don’t blanch yet, the Rediffusion film gets even more corny with the rendition of an artist, a gymnast and more. We get the idea. You want to show an emotion from a different perspective and while doing that, position Rooh Afza as a young person’s drink. I really want this brand I’ve grown up with, to succeed. So I’ll be polite and stop now.

Stay sexy

Set Wet is the deo range from Marico, and with great expectations from the deo market (phew, thank God!) this range is being re-launched. There’s Ranveer Singh playing the role of a charming, incorrigible flirt. He carries off his role with elan. So you have this character who spells out what the positioning statements behind the deo range are all about. Entertaining. And that’s a compliment to an ad film.

Crazy? 4G!

Airtel and Taproot Dentsu have made their model Sasha Chhetri a celebrity in order to send her off to the most unlikely 4G-friendly places such as Mashobra and Shillong and discover that 4G covers all these far-flung places as well. Well-made little films that get the message across very effectively. But the 4G war is hotting up. Read on to see who is challenging the celeb-status of Sasha.

The pug returns

Vodafone has entered the 4G battle with Cheeka the pug. So you have a series of little teasers where the music falls in line with the panting sounds of the little pug. Well, with Airtel already showing off its superfast downloads and Jio threatening to be the joker in the pack, Vodafone obviously felt it needed to dig deep into its bag of creative resources and pull a bunny, or rather a pug, out of a hat. Now let’s see if the network is as good as one expects. And let’s hope the price of pugs doesn’t go up in the seedy breeders market.

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

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