Jija-saali,auto-desire: Ad agencies say its worth taking the risque
The light is out. In the greenish-grey haze is a young woman,stumbling in the dark. A strapping man appears and she swoons....
The light is out. In the greenish-grey haze is a young woman,stumbling in the dark. A strapping man appears and she swoons,spraining her ankle. He picks her up and begins to carry her up a flight of stairs. The woman asks if she is too heavy for him. Not as heavy as your sister, he replies. The corner of the screen goes dark,and the name of a deodorant appears,with the legend Barely legal.
A man-bike is in a garage,recounting his day on the road. Mid-sentence,the rough-tough bike takes a swig of engine oil meant for smaller,less powerful machines. Immediately he crosses his legs,and begins to talk in an effeminate manner.
TV ads with messages endorsing infidelity and chauvinism are triggering complaints to the Advertising Standards Council of India.
The deo ad is more than just flirtatious,say the complaints it is indecent and inappropriate,suggesting sex between a man and his sister-in-law. A standard 15-day notice has been served on the advertiser,following which the matter will go to the Consumer Complaints Council CCC to check for compliance with the ASCI code.
Suman Srivastava,CEO,Euro RSCG India,the firm that made the Wild Stone-Barely Legal deo ad,is combative and mildly scornful.
Glad it has been noticed,first of all, Srivastava said. The point is,if you look at the jija-saali angle,there are references to it in our literature and art. It has been in our culture. Our ad is naughty and sexy. It is not exactly recommended for little children,but on the whole,it is not wrong. The rest of it is happening in peoples minds.
The makers of the bike-man ad for Savsol motor oil do not agree that it is sexist,or that it makes fun of effeminate people.
We have done our job. If people choose to find faults,they will, said Bobby Pawar,Chief Creative Officer,Mudra Group. The ideas come out of the brand. The engine oil is for 125cc and higher bikes. We came back to our consumers who ride and are looking to maintain their high cc bikes. They dont use a bike for transportation,they treat it like a person,and thats how we have shown it. We are saying that macho will become a whim if you continue using oil that is meant for lower cc bikes.
Every month,the ASCI gets between 12 and 15 complaints. Ads are checked for obscenity,untruthful claims,unfairness and promotion of unsafe practices. If a company cannot prove that claims in an ad are true,it is checked by a group of independent technicians, said Alan Collaco,ASCI secretary-general. So,if you say a drop of detergent can clean a kadhai full of chiknaai,well,you have to prove it.
Among the ads that attract the most flak are those for weight-loss and fairness creams. Some ads are clearly offensive to certain groups of people,Collaco said. He gave the example of a Yahoo search engine ad that showed a skydiver crashing because he stammered and could not quickly count up to five as instructed before opening his parachute.
The ad was trying to show the search engine is fast. A group complained,and the complaint was upheld by the Consumer Complaints Council. The ad is now off air, Collaco said.
A Swift Dzire ad currently playing on TV shows a child asking her father if she is beautiful,because she gets no attention from classmates. The father takes her out in his new car,and she immediately starts getting attention.
A complainant asked ASCI why it was important to show that a childs craving for attention could be fulfilled by a ride in an expensive car. ASCI decided it was the car that was attracting onlookers and compliments,not the girl who was sitting in it and ignored the complaint.
While the debate continues on whether it is right to show that a child needs a snazzy car to feel good,the carmaker feels the ad has achieved its purpose.
Said Shashank Srivastava,chief general manager,marketing,Maruti: The ad is about building desire. It is about the car being distinctive and good-looking. That is all we were showing desirability of a car. The response,he said,had been good. Sales have been terrific. Brand-tracking results are not in yet,but there has been a spike in the orders for the car.
Mudras Pawar thinks the problems people find with ads are frequently in their minds. There is pressure in our society to be always politically correct. We see everything in extremes either it is good or it is bad. There are a lot of shades of grey in between that people dont want to look at.
Says Piyush Pandey of Oamp;M India: Advertisers in India are too scared. Our movies and TV serials get away with showing virtually anything. I object to ads that are misleading or obscene,but advertising has not used its creative licence the way movies have. Of course,we should not get carried away the way they do. But we should be able to defend our creative licences.
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