But the other day, I saw an advert on television which made me change my mind. In this advert, Jackie Shroff is convincing people with broken hips and weak knees to apply an expensive herbal medicine that’ll get them back on their feet and running in no time.[break]
As you’ll notice, because luckily for you, your brain hasn’t been dented by all those years of overexposure to rapid-fire advertising, that in each of these advertisements there’s a hotshot who’s been a hero or a heroine who’s run out of movie projects and has therefore confined themselves to the world of glamour advertisements.
Surely, if the Sandhi Sudha Oil is as remarkable as what Mr. Shroff proclaims it to be on television, pharmaceutical companies would go out of business.
If the Sandhi Sudha Oil was compared to our very own Ramdev Baba’s remedy for joint aches, then presumably the ad would have a bit more conviction.
But of course not! These adverts are rarely compared to an alternate remedy, and instead ride on the somewhat awkward yet familiar celebrity bandwagon to sell itself.
The flimsiness of commercial contentions on television these days is something that often leaves me rather agitated.
The other day, I watched dumbfounded as a has-been hero in the Nepali film industry claimed that by wearing this medallion which cost a few thousand Rupees, all the bad vibes would ricochet from you to the person giving it out in the first place.
It even had people who belted out instances in their own lives when the medallion helped rebound them from their personal lives and businesses from slumps.
Then there’s an Amitabh Bachchan advert where he speaks in Nepali to convince us of the benefits of the product he’s selling.
Or the advertisement in which this all-American lady with a too-good-to-be-true flat lower abdomen speaks to an all-American studio audience in – check this out! – Nepali. What impudence!
However, to be fair, not all adverts that run on Nepali channels are deceptive or empty-headed.
There’s a Wai Wai ad that I’m particularly taken in by at the moment which features Nepalis from all geographical locations coming together.
It is, I must admit, a rather pleasing concept.
No, the problem with the adverts is that while most of them are bad adaptations or voiceovers of foreign-language originals, they are simply so frequent.
For example, during the 45-minute episode of “Jire Khursanee,” a popular show on Nepal Television, adverts run for a good 15 minutes, on an average of one every three minutes.
The latest trend in television is News Channels which, as far as I can tell, has nothing but “Breaking News” and commercial breaks.
Unfortunately, this phenomenon isn’t restricted to television only.
Even movies these days are full of tacky advertisements with the on-screen heroes and heroines manifestly endorsing the latest-model cars and gadgets.
Shah Rukh Khan is famously said to have worn a Lux vest in return for cash for one of his movies.
Not to be outdone, Hritik Roshan also donned a Macroman. Most of us will be damned if we wear them, either.
Predictably, all this has made my head throb. So, I’m off to RK Pharma to buy myself a Suprin.
I hear in a recent survey, it’s preferred over De-Cold – by two to one. Or maybe I’m thinking of Ruslan Vodka.
The writer is a banker by profession. He enjoys single malts and other good things in life.
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