The New Adonis

Piyush Pande, group president and national creative director of Oglivy 038; Mather, believes this is a transition from advertisements that need to tell you, 8216;hey, look at me, I8217;m an ad8217; to those that reflect life. 8216;8216;And in life, there is no Adonis,8217;8217; he says. O038;M is the brain behind the unconventional commercials for Centreshock, Mentos, Five Star and Alpenliebe.

Elaborating on the O 038; M philosophy, Pushpender Singh, senior creative director, says, 8216;8216;By no stretch of imagination would one have thought of screening a puny little fellow with crooked teeth in a toothpaste commercial,8217;8217; referring to the Close-Up ad with the small guy accosting a college stunner. But this does not mean that it8217;s pack-up time for the happy family scene. 8216;8216;They8217;ll stay, but the good news is that people have become bold enough to harness different ideas,8217;8217; he adds.

Another commercial by the agency features a truck driver, Hari Singh Mehendiratta of Haryana, telling us why he uses British Petroleum. 8216;8216;Sales of BP have shown an increase after the ad,8217;8217; says Singh. The catch, he says, is that a real truck driver relating his experience is more convincing than lines mouthed by paid actors. 8216;8216;The first reaction when you see an ad is 8216;this guy has been paid to say these lines.8217; Not so here.8217;8217;

8216;8216;People got bored of perfect looks,8217;8217; says Anil Warner, executive creative director of J Walter Thompson Advertising, which thought up the Mirinda ad featuring a family with frizzy hair.

Casting directors too have a big part to play. 8216;8216;Casting directors are making an effort to get actors, not models,8217;8217; says Pande. Warner agrees, 8216;8216;Casting is according to what the script demands.8217;8217; So, if it8217;s a not-so-perfect, at times downright funny guy who can say it better, so be it. As Adrian Mendonza, creative vice-president of Rediffusion DY 038; R, puts it, 8216;8216;Stage artistes are also playing characters in ads, they are more than just good-looking people. But you may still need the Adonis to do the suiting commercial.8217;8217; However, he does not favour putting people in funny clothes to bring out humour. 8216;8216;It is the idea that matters,8217;8217; he says, citing the example of the Philips bulb commercial where a palmist is fooling an unsuspecting client, until a bulb throws light on the hand. 8216;8216;The idea was funny, the casting included average-looking guys,8217;8217; he says. The need to have funny people or weird clothes did not arise.

Shankar Nair, creative vice-president of McCann Ericksson India Ltd., feels that ads today are using 8216;8216;a deliberate sense of humour8217;8217;.8216;8216;Commercials are not idea-driven and rely on shock value. It reflects a paucity of ideas,8217;8217; he says. The M-Seal commercial, he says, is a good example of an idea-driven pitch. It showed an old man8217;s signature being wiped off his will soon after his death by a leaking pipe, much to the dismay of his greedy relatives. 8216;8216;This idea was humourous and the casting was very good. So one didn8217;t need a deliberately funny guy,8217;8217; he says.

But Nair agrees that the need to cast the perfect guy has receded. 8216;8216;After consumerism set in, the growth of advertising has made it move away from the face. A father has to now look like an actual father.8217;8217;