Mad, Fad, Ad-World

Mad, Fad, Ad-World

 RAJBIR DESWAL

They add ‘mad’ to the art of advertising, only because it rhymes well with ‘Ad’.  Otherwise, ask the people in the business of advertising as to how much of creativity and thought process goes into the making of an Ad.   If I have to rhyme in continuation of even the argument, then I will rephrase it as ‘Mad, Fad, Ad-World’, for it’s only for the fads that we get sucked into while going in for a certain thing, besides of course the things that are enormously and eminently in the line of Maslow’s Pyramid of Basic Needs.

Advertising through whatever means of communication was then available, we would see only Lifebouy, Glycodin, Saridon and Anacin Ads.  With the going on air of Vividh Bharti, the All India Radio started blurbing it all with jingles with a tickling and tinkling tone marking the pauses in many ads.

But before this, I recall a jingle on Radio Ceylon which tolled like a ting-tong to announce ‘Loma time’ – a watch popular in those days besides Henri Sandoz, Favre-Leuba, Romar and Titus.

Then there were other conventional methods of advertising, on the roads and street-walls, largely of the film posters.  Rickshaws, decked up with painted sack cloth and with film posters were also seen in those days with a dhol-drummer and a professional rattle-tattle man, in the lead.

The Ad-Man sitting in a rickshaw, with a microphone  covered with a cloth held in both hands, and using a public address horn on the rickshaw’s handle, would proclaim as if in a refrain, the clichéd announcement—“Once again on great public demand ! KVM’s Meharbaan! In Eastman colour! New copy guaranteed! On reduced rates! In your own Raj Talkies!” And then a popular number would be played on the black HMV disc of which the stylus kept jumping to repeat certain parts of the musical composition. This was a common sight in those days.

Small time entrepreneurs employed pamphlets announcing ‘Khul gaya! Khul gaya’ if it was a show room. The blow-horn advertising of Beedi No. 22 still reverberates in my ears.

The more enterprising advertisers like Red & White Cigarette Company had one woman with a ten times bigger, egg shaped red shell on her head, walking in front of a line-up of four men wearing extra large pants, on their stilts, was also a common sight in Moufassal towns.  The stencil impressions on the walls was yet another mode of advertising, particularly during the elections.

During my visit to Victoria in Canada, I came across a very interesting advertising technique,  Approaching the Capital City of British Columbia, we read on a huge bill-board, an inscription on “Mention this board when you check-in at our hotel for a discount.”  When we did so on reaching that particular hotel, and mentioned the board that we had seen, we were given straightaway twenty-five percent discount.  What a way to not only proclaiming alluring-advertising but to measure and square up the effect of it instantaneously, at your customer counter!

Advertising has really traveled through what was less but really more; and now, enough but actually so very less!