Ad(d) value

The little sweet doggy is back with a little girl this time. During the debut match of IPL, the thing I enjoyed the most after Mccullum's innings was the series of Vodafone ads.

The little dog wetting the tickets for envelopes by licking them was an awesome sight. The interesting part is that Vodafone doesn't come into the picture anywhere until you are completely held by the double innocence of the girl and the doggy.

And then, they simply write their message in big letters, such that it reaches every single heart.

I mean, when you watch it for the first time, it sure does.

Even before this, Vodafone has made beautiful ads for their alerts' services, the best one being for the art of living alerts.

Of course, nobody has forgot the 'Kabhi kabhi mere dil mein khayal aata hai' ad where a guy sings one song through out his life and at the end you get an almost statutory warning telling you 'Zyada gaane sunen' (listen to more songs).

I just hope they keep on making such ads, which not only add to their customers, but also make the entire experience of watching TV great.

'Touch' me

'Touch' matters. But I'm not in a mood to talk the physical touch here. I'm talking of the 'touchy' things, rather ads, that TV is bringing to us, more and more.

Movie makers have been good at touching since time immemorial. Be it Gulzar or Rishikesh Mukherjee, Karan Johar or Aditya Chopra. But now a number of advertisers are moving towards touchy-feely things compared to previous times.

Of course there have been touchy ads since the TV started. I still remember those Raymond ads which stirred my soul even while I was a child. Remember the school children collecting coins in cap for the leaving teacher? (Principal I think)

But now, a whole new dimension is being added it seems. The surf excel ad (sorry bol raha hai one), the Jaypee ad (the one in which a little boy brings a little girl to show her the dam) can be quoted among such ads.

And then came the ad from Airtel. A whole new thing. An advertisement that India had never seen before. Two little boys across border coming together to play football. Followed by 'Baatein gira deti hain faaslon ki deewaarein' or 'barriers break when people talk'.

Now the thing that made me think. The latest advertisement I saw, from Airtel. In this one, a little girl calls up her 'papa' at night cause she wants to do some drawing where 'papa' is working at a site. And then papa finally brings the girl out under the sky and they both draw on sky together. On an Airtel. Oops!

Waise, the latest coke ad I saw didn't touch me less. Maybe because of the Sufi voices involved in the ad. In this one some guys come back from presumably a party or something and are hungry when everything is closed. And then Hritik performs the magic of coke and there's a beautiful voice singing 'waqt ye na rukta hai, aaj tu Jashn mana le'. (please tell me who's the singer if u know or find somewhere, dying to know that) Yet another hit by music composer Raam Sampat, my old, old favorite.