Tuesday, January 09, 2007

and they call it advertising..!!

After numerous rounds of "We don't know if Osama Bin Laden is still alive", Osama decided to personally send President Bush a letter in his own handwriting to let him know he was "still in the game".

Mr. Bush opened the letter, which contained a single line of "coded" message:

370HSSV-0773H

Mr. Bush was baffled, so he sent copies to his Chief of Staff, and several Secretaries, including Condi Rice and Donald Rumsfeld. Their assistants and aides had no clue as to the meaning or translation of the code, so it was sent to the Federal Bureau of Investigation, then to the CIA and also to NASA.

With no clue to the translation, they eventually asked Israel's MOSAD for help.

Within a minute, MOSAD cabled the White House with this reply: "Tell the President he is holding the message upside down."...........

That is Mr Bush as we know him, but what about our very own Ad guys... this time it is not any agency or a corporate client whom I have picked up to review. I was in a dilemma as to whether it deserves to be a part of my blog but couldnt help it...the AD in question here is the Road safety Ad released by the Govt of India -Ministry of road transport and highways(uufff!!)

It is the road safety week and see what their website has to say.....

As you may perhaps be aware that about 90,000 persons get killed every year in the road accidents causing loss of human lives as well as loss of property. This underlines the urgency of road safety measures. As a part of awareness campaign on road safety, “Road Safety Week” is observed throughout the country every year in the month of January in order to highlight and emphasize the need for safe roads by taking up activities to promote the concept.......

mmmm.......what a noble thought you say... ?

“Road Safety is life safety" is the theme of this mega excercise and Release of advertisements & messages on Road Safety from various dignitaries in daily Newspapers form only one part of long list of activities that they scheme to undertake......still it caught my attention, the Ads which they have released in some english news channel .....

A serious message as I feel could have been dealt with seriously if you were that old school of thought or if you belong to the neo modern styles could use humour, satire of slice of lives..but for Gods sake not the way it was shown to me through my favourite news channel at the prime time daypart.....

It looked like a stupid drama which we all have been part of or have atleast seen in our school days..not the high school days I am talking about..there you get more sensible.. the kid days where we used to act and beleive that we are good in it.. there we had our teachers/nuns/directors nervously standing there in the side prompting dialogues and actions, encouraging, shouting, smiling....Remember?

Well that is the picture that I got ,when I saw this ad first...

I was wondering How much money would they have spend on this masterpiece of inanity...?

Who would have seen this ad and approved it...? what would be living in his head space where others have something called as Brain....?

Or is it that nobody has to see and approve such ads because it is all Govt money and readily available for any wastrel for his profligacy?

And more importantly who would have made this ads..DAVP I guess,but the people..the process..the visualisation .....?

And I was about to forget the ordeal like a bad dream,alas here comes the second one in the campaign....equally horrendous or even worse....

I remember when years ago I was initiated into advertising as a trainee,some one told me one rule to follow when you deal with a 'clients money'.......it said ' treat your clients money as your own' and 'spend it wisely'......

This is a classical case of the rule applied in letter and spirit but selectively.........

Would it have been any better if this task was given to some professional Ad agency?

May be yes but then this is a case also of a bad client- who does not know what he wants.....

One who reads everything upside down.....

and they still call it ..Advertising...

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