As for buying something based on the ads,I seriously doubt if ads influence that much to a sane thinker!
My skepticism definitely reeks of the novice in me about the advertising world ,but personally when it comes to choosing a product of substantial monetary value,I go by the real potential of the commodity rather than trying hard to think who endorsed the brand or what part of the program in doordarshan did they sponsor.Was it Tendulkar or Aishwarya Rai or Shahrukh who endorsed it?.-who the hell cares! Infact at times,I end up choosing products that don't get advertised much, just for the sake of it and to prove a silly but pleasing point to myself that I didn't buy a brand which resorted to advertising somewhat pathetically time and again on all kinds of media using the topmost tennis star or the film star!What are they trying to say?-That tendulkar uses a certain brand of hair-oil and thats why he plays well or the Bachans use a certain brand of watch and thats why they are on schedule?
From the decisions that my family made based on TV ads,I feel the most influencial of them were the FMCG -fast moving consumer goods' ads which directly showed the effect of using the product in the family,using pretty mundane advertising ideas and unknown actors in the demonstration of the process - something which every common man can relate too.Eg:The surf ad or the eureka forbes vacuum cleaner ads.
Something which gets on my nerves is the condescension of the ad makers to sell their product at any cost!I remember seeing an Indian ad where a mother is shown to panic and scream to such an extent as if her daughter is heading towards the jaws of death,only to find in the next few seconds that all that commotion was because she din't want her daughter to use anything other than a particular brand of shampoo!Those cheap tricks are something which stay in the mind for long and make sure that that brand never gets into my shopping list,even it were to be my elixir of life!
Sometimes I feel the companies are wasting a lot of time and money trying to advertise their products to the TV watching junta.Its akin to advertising medicines to the people,when the real decision is being taken by the doctor.I don't remember a single time when my dad or I have ever asking for a particular type of paracetamol advertised on TV to be prescribed to us.Similarly,with the good old way things are bought in Indian homes,where its the product that is needed that is being specified in the grocery list(say mosquito coil/mats) given to the shopkeeper and not the brand of the product,I think companies need to spend more on marketing their products and give kickbacks to the local Murugan stores or BHS hospital rather trying to target their catchy memorable ads to the general subbu n kuppu who don't really give a damn as to whether it was the 'Goodknight mats' or the 'tortoise mats' that kept the mosquitoes away the previous night!
As long as it is cheap and it works,nobody gives a damn to the advertising or the brand,atleast in India!This is just my perception and as I said earlier,this might really reek explicitly of my being a novice in the world of advertising!
-Raapi
Posted by rajesh | 
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