Ads have ad-on value. Or they should. Considering the quantum of time of a television viewer or a magazine reader that ads snatch away, it should have. The other day exigency tied me down to a channel. Having left the remote kilometres away, forgetfulness turns the clock back by a decade kind of. Since mobility has been mortgaged to the couch potato pleasure, there was the unease of having to get up to escape ads. Rooted to the comfort of the visually sedated, I was exposed to forgettable ads which were, to add to the insult, repeated. One ad paraded an experiment. A washing competition in which a surf Excel wins hands down. An ad which makes one take a look at the calendar to check the century one belongs to! Another one had three creams from three countries and the the one for which the ad is made won it lock, stock and barrel. These were repeated twice or thrice during each break. For a viewer who is already taxed by the effort having to watch a movie which stretches the limits of patience, this was too much.
Ads for me have basically an art function. It should please ones thoughts and elevate ones mind. It doesn't have to trigger a shopping decision. It hardly does. Repeated exposure to an ad can give the pleasure of having bought it some times. But it is pleasure to watch a well made a(d)rt. The ad-art success is hard to achieve as the time available for the director to deliver the message is pretty short. In moments the message should reach the customer. Perhaps this explains the abundance of bad ads around us. But what is further annoying is the decision of a company to buy such an ad to sell its wares. The suggestive fights it out with the stated in a classic ad. Without yielding much ground to the selling angle, the classic ad fiddles with pleasure of the mind. Smartly sidestepping the task of hooking the customer, the ad starts to live a life of its own. In this fancied life which the ad thinks it lives, there is the lurking presence of a commercial message which is livid for having left unshouted.
If there is one company which allows its ads to wander free, it is Vodafone. They have made it a point that their ads tickle the minds. They can open up an alternative way to present the thought. Think of the ad in which an injured man, not seriously, is being pampered by a crowd, which brings in huge wooden fan to comfort him. It is an ad in point. The man is spoiled with the way the unknown crowd cares for him. You simply like the ad which would like to tell you that it will spoil you with extra services and comforts. Even a viewer who is critical of the advertising gimmicks will forgive the company. The more loveable part of the Vodafone ad campaign is that they get it right almost every time. The ads which appeared during the different world cups with different themes and Zoo zoos images had this common element. The smile it brings to the viewers face. The short laughter. The kind of expression which begins and ends with, " these guys .... !" . And compare that with the revulsion the above said Surf brings!
I should be extra grateful because though I love those ads, am yet to be a Vodafone customer. Interestingly the other day I visited one of their showrooms to port my number from the Idea which has been "foolaking" me for long. The guy, yeah Customer Relationship' guy, told me, that Idea and Vodafone share towers! So if my problem is lack of sufficient coverage, which is what it is, I'm bound to be disappointed. He didn't state all these. Without so many words, I was conveyed as much. When I compare this with the nonsense dished out to me by the Idea Service centres, this was pretty honest. "foolaking" seems to be the the idea which has saved the life of the Idea Cellular company these days! This is where the the Vodafone wins. They don't serve you with as much shit the way Idea does ( May the unhappy Vodafonians have mercy on me!). Even if they do, the ads help us forgive them for the pleasure it arouses.
In a way, it is not such a bad idea to keep the art of the ad above the commerce, coz commerce is concrete while art can be abstract. Concrete commerce aims a sell and a kill. While art could just flirt with your mind, keep you off the inherent use of the product and makes you take off to somewhere. Art of the ad provides you the comfort zone to just be happy with the connotations, leaving the denotations at the bottom. It falsely makes you feel that the purchase be damned, the ad be enjoyed. The beauty of such a thought in us, for them, the company, the sellers, is that the customer will not scream the way I have to the Idea merchants. Especially when the service people tell me that the weakness of signals could be because of the peak online traffic! Well, if you don't have sufficient width for your band, then why sell it to so many customers! An Idea can spoil your life for sure! I mean it, no Foolaking!
Long live Vodafone ads! Mean, as long as they let me live the life of the mind!
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