Mindless Advertising

A young boy, no actually a kid, comes running to his mom complaining that he has lost his favorite new toy. Mom says, ‘beta, look around, you will find it somewhere.’ Boy insists that he has indeed lost the toy.

Apparently, there are visitors in the living room. A young couple is chit-chating with the mom when the boy barges in the conversation. The visitor promises to buy the kid a new toy , to which the kiddo replies, ‘Why should you buy me the toy? My dad is going to get it for me.’

The kid is nice and adorable. The setting very homely and cosy, right where you would like to fit in any given day. Everything is believable and real like, until the visitor blurts out, ‘but beta, what if you happen to lose your dad?’

The minute you hear this, you stare at the ad in disbelief. Do you think any sane person (and the young visitor in the ad looks alright, his senses intact) would pose such a question to a child? Imagine your uncles and aunts asking you when you were a kid a similar question—what kind of an insecurity and helplessness it would have left on your impressionable mind. And more than that, what kind of a grown-up you needed to be to have posed such a question to a kid. Mr. Writer, I don’t think you have got it right this time--such stories are not only difficult to digest, but leaves a bad taste in the mouth.

And every time I hear the young man asking that question, I feel a strong sense of rejection for the product. I feel strange at the mindlessness of such rubbish that is thrown at us in the name of creativity and good production values. Not all times, advertisements will reflect reality. In fact, most of the ad stories are made to make the product king-size and exaggeration is a given in the make believe world.

However, there are words like ethics, civility and good sense. If those are thrown to the wind, even the cutest kid and the best setting will not manage to salvage the story and I seriously doubt the effectively of such mindlessness in creating a brand value for any product.