What are they trying to say? That their product launch capabilities suck?
Interesting. The people are stick figures but the pyramids are drawn in isometric projection.
Ads that make no sense, a continuing series
October 16, 2006
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Self Contradictory Advertising
June 29, 2006I saw these three advertisements (for advertisement space- how recursive can you get?) at the Rajiv Chowk Connaught Place station of the Delhi Metro.
Basically the funda is that each of the ads shows somebody with their eyes blocked- by cucumbers, hair or a bucket and claims that’s the only way someone will miss that ad space- and by implication, advertisers should run out and buy it.
But if there are three separate ways to miss the ad, then they can’t each be the only way. Woreshtax.
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Football
June 26, 2006I have no clue about how football works, beyond a vague idea that you have to kick a ball into a goal, with the annoying restriction that this only counts for one goal. However, I am getting into the spirit of the thing and supporting Ghana. My brother has offered me 10-1 for the Brazil match, and I have bet 50 Singapore dollars.
Yes, yes, Brazil is supposed to be a good footbal team, and Ghana are supposed to be not as good, but I wouldn’t know about that. On the other hand, Ghana’s supporters are big fat jolly black men who sing and dance, while Brazil’s fans are women with big bosoms. You can’t trust them.
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Censorship for Television too II
June 10, 2006So now the government has decided to go ahead and censor TV directly, without even bothering with a regulator.
The Hindustan Times reports that music channels will now have to run a scroll apologising for playing ‘obscene’ videos. And stop showing them henceforth.
What fun. I suppose next news channels will have to apologise for sensationalising news, and stop showing sensational news. And once that is done, they can stop reporting bad news and criticising the government altogether. After all that could hurt somebody’s feelings too.
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Arising Out of Ads
June 4, 2006I must have seen more television in the past two months than I have in the two years before. I haven’t missed much. The ads are the best bit.
The Garnier fairness cream made me recall something I saw in China but didn’t remember to write about in the travelogue. The Chinese buy fairness creams too. As usual, the language gap prevented me from finding out details, but it was interesting to see that the Chinese beauty ideal also places a premium on fair skin.
It’s especially interesting because China was never colonised by the British to the extent that India was, so the usual explanation of the preference for fair skin being a colonial hangover doesn’t hold that much water.
Perhaps human beings actually do have an innate, genetic preference for fair skin, for whatever reason. Of course it is not logical, but sexual selection does not have to be.
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Moving on, curly haired woomaans in the Slice and Sony Ericsson ads strongly are, so much so that they make me drop back into IIMB lingo. Is it the same girl in both the ads?
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The Tata Mutual Fund which you should pick because it has “a hedging function for maximising returns and minimising risks” is a remarkable piece of financial gobbledegook. Because, after all, only Tata’s mutual fund will try to maximise returns or minimise risks.
Secondly, how the hell does it do both? Risk and return are proportional. You can maximise returns while fixing risk, or minimise returns while fixing risk, but you have to accept a tradeoff somewhere.
And finally, how, oh how, does a hedging function maximise returns? A hedge is done specifically to fix risk at an acceptable level. Returns don’t enter the picture.
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Finally, the Frankfinn ad is one of the worst made ones I have had the privelege of seeing. Despite that, it is remarkable for another reason. It is the first ad I have ever seen which pitches a product as an alternative to marriage instead of as an aid to it. In remarkable opposition to stuff like Fair and Lovely and LIC.
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Censorship for Television too
April 17, 2006The UPA government, bless its fascist little heart, is planning to introduce legislation to set up a content regulator for television. The Hindustan Times report I’ve linked to mentions, among other things:
- that Priyaranjan Dasmunshi, the I&B minister said that it was the uniform view of viewers that there was a need for content regulation and comprehensive legislation. Which viewers? How many of them? Have they asked the man?
- that the government wants a clampdown on sensationalization of news, especially crime news. So I guess the next time there’s a riot in Gujarat, or anywhere else for that matter, the government can stop NDTV from broadcasting images as they’re too sensational. Public awareness? What public awareness?
- Ooh, and here’s the good stuff: channels can be temporarily suspended for a short term if they default the code (which code? It doesn’t say). After Fernandesgate, all the government could do was drag Tehelka’s promoters to court. With this new and improved legislation, you can shut down that pesky news channel straight away. Why waste time at the courts?
Enjoy your TV news while you can.
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Down with The Hindu
February 10, 2006The pseudo-secular, crypto-leftist rag for indolent IAS aspirants seems to have decided that since it can’t match the Slimes in circulation, it will match it in abysmal journalism.
Day two saw one of the big events in the fest, the quiz, turn out to be remarkably low-key. Even though the number of participants was high, the presentation did not meet the standards set during the business fest, Vista, held earlier in the year. [link]
Our presentation couldn’t match up to Derek O’ Brien’s? Derek, who chucks teams off the stage and destroys any chance of fightbacks? Derek, who despises fundaes, and whose quizzes will never have those aaahhhh moments that only fundaes can bring? Derek, who doesn’t know his participants personally, and can’t banter with them? Our presentation was worse than his? This is surely enough provocation for me to pull a TTG and offer Anand Sankar creative additions to his diet.
Our pal continues with his woeful disregard for facts and goes on to say
Jal… have a very rock sound rather than a pop one
And people still claim that the Hindu is reliable. Astounding.
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Red Underpants and the Breasts of Power
December 6, 2005Singapore newspapers are like Mid-Day. On steriods. They start at 40 pages, and weigh about a kilo, and look as if they’ve been written by earnest and well-meaning twelve year old students.
Check out this dreamlike prose, from a The New Paper article on an awards ceremony.
Superstitions and lucky charms were abound as the stars crossed their fingers for a chance to go home with one of the blown-glass trophies.
Bryan, 34, credited his Best Comedy Performer and Top Ten Most Popular Male Artiste wins to his red underwear.
He even yanked out the top part of his red underwear from underneath his pants to show reporters backstage.
A gleeful Bryan said: “My fengshui adviser called me up this morning to tell me that I must wear red underwear because red is my lucky colour today. So I rushed down to Hereen to specially buy a pair. He also said I should visit someone in the east, so I went all the way back to the east to my sister’s home, changed into the red underwear, before heading here (to MediaCorp).”Meanwhile, Yifeng thought her red hair- which she had dyed just that morning- could have brought her luck.
And of course, Kym helped too.
“I’ve never won anything in my life, not in any contest whatsoever, but Kym came to me this morning, and grabbed my breasts saying that she was passing all her ‘power’ to me,” said Yifeng.
“I must really thank her. If not for her deliberately playing bimbo all the time, how can I show off my smarts?”.
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