Did you know that people prefer to make love in the dark? (See the clever omission of the word 'sex'? Oops, I said it!, well, so sue me!) That's because it will kill the whole mood if both simultaneously realise that they could have made a better choice! Did you know that power outage ('load shedding' as it is popularly known) is rampant in this country? Did you know how many advertising people it takes to put two and two together? Did you know how many it takes to change a light bulb in the dark?
I find some flaws in this commercial. First, if population growth depended upon power outages, our villages would have been as densely populated as the cities. And cities would feel like a second class train compartment at rush hour!
I personally don't agree with the fact that darkness alone works. Whenever we had power outages, I never managed to catch my wife! Turned out she was more agile than me, and had a strong will (won't is a better word)...
Sorry. I'm letting personal feelings come in the way of professional analysis. Moving on...
Second, this is a commercial you can't watch with your kids around. A friend told me that he became really uneasy when the shot of the rocking bed appeared and his son gave out a hearty laugh. My friend turned pink with embarrassment. He felt a bit relieved when they showed the couple playing with their phones on that bed and spoke out loud to ease the tension, "Ah! they were just playing games." At this, his son turned around and said with a smirk, "Playing games, they were." and laughed again!
As I said, you can't watch this one with your kids around. You never know how much they already know! It gets really embarrassing for our generation and that's why I am going on an indefinite fast against this ad. I have convinced my wife to join me this time. If not anything, at least it will slow her down!
Recipe: Take a semi-successful ad. Let it go out of people's long term memory. Take a new product. Make a spoof ad for this product based on the ad that everybody has forgotten. Hope that people will make the connection. Serve with a smile. (after all, aren't the consumers keenly interested in the history of advertising?).
Why (and I am going to ask this only once) do we resort to such ads? Is it because Pepsi takes on Coke and Apple takes on Microsoft? With all due respect for the brand managers involved, the two products in question have precious little in common with these giants.
Wait! I do have a plausible explanation for this! The Hajmola Mint (mentioned as 'Spoofer' hereafter) ad was conceived way way back when the Chloremint (mentioned as 'Spoofee' hereafter) ad was running, and perhaps was intended for quite a different product competing with the Spoofee at the time. Senses prevailed and the script was shelved. Years passed. The agency took it out of the cold storage (many agencies have a large one) and presented it to the Spoofer client after the Spoofer client rejected all good ideas and chided the agency for its lack of mustaches and tea testing abilities.
"But the Spoofee is no longer running their ad", said the Spoofer client! The agency said "Much better! now the Spoofee won't take us to court for using the same Paanwalla!"
Anyways. Even if all this was true, the question remains (that I have already asked above). Therefore I have decided to fast for 3 days against this ad. (don't ask why 3 days again, dam phool).
Jai Anthony Simonds-Gooding, Jai Hind.
- Anna.
PS: Please find attached (reluctantly) herewith both Spoofer and Spoofee ads for your perusal.
About the future.
About the future.
