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REVEALED: The stories behind some popular ads on Indian television

Sometime in 1980s, Indian ad filmmaker Alyque Padamsee received a call from the then municipal commissioner of Mumbai (then Bombay), Jamshed Kanga. "Alyque, you have created many successful public service campaigns, why not make one for me too?" he suggested. Kanga spent next few minutes explaining the issue - how diseases like typhoid, cholera, dysentery and jaundice were on rise in the city due to an increasing consumption of unhygienically prepared roadside sugarcane juice. Listening to him, Padamsee agreed to work on a campaign.
The very first visual was enough to put the audiences off: sugarcane juice being squeezed out of a rusted machine in an area buzzing with flies. Amid this, the vendor offers a glass of juice to the customer, which has a dead fly in it. As he begins to drink it, a voice in the background exclaims, "Only for Rs 5 a glass, you can buy jaundice, cholera, typhoid and dysentery."
When said commercial appeared on television screens across Mumbai, sugarcane vendors were left red-faced. One day, they decided to pay Padamsee a visit at his office. "Sahab, iski wajah se hamara business 50 per cent down ho gaya hai. (Sir, due to this ad, our business has gone down by 50 per cent.)" The ad had created furore among the sugarcane vendors. After a few days, Kanga asked Padamsee to take it off air.
Such has been the impact of television advertising in India. From hardselling brands to espousing social causes, it wouldn't be far-fetched to say it has had a fascinating journey. One that has been carefully documented in a new book by adman K.V. Sridhar, aka Pops. Peppered with nostalgia and served with rich anecdotes, 30 Second Thrillers (published by Bloomsbury India) features conversations with the luminaries of television advertising in India. From stalwarts like A.G. Krishnamurthy and Padamsee to new-age ad filmmakers such as Ram Madhvani and Arun Iyer, everyone shares the stories behind some of the greatest ads ever made on Indian television. Embedded in these stories is the history of television advertising and the connect it has had with the masses. As Sridhar explains, "The idea came from my personal experience of interacting with non-advertising people, who often ask you what you do. Once you say advertising, their faces go blank. However, if I were to ask them, 'Did you see the Thums Up ad?', they'd say yes with glittering eyes. They'd prod me to share my experience of working with Salman Khan or Akshay Kumar. This prompted me to unveil stories behind popular ad campaigns of the last 40 years."

Prior to television's rather delayed foray into Indian homes in the '80s, print, radio, outdoor banners and cinemas were domains where advertising had penetrated and made its presence felt. With the entry of television as a mass medium, sponsored content became an enticing idea. The rationale behind most of the ads then, however, was to simply focus on the product and hardsell it. "In the late 80s and mid-90s, all that changed to storytelling ads," says Sridhar. Think of the Surf ads featuring straight-talking Lalitaji or the Cherry Blossom ads with Cherry Charlie (a walking-talking replica of Charlie Chaplin). The story goes that as the advertising team behind the latter, helmed by Padamsee, conducted research, they discovered that the sale of Cherry Blossom was "stagnant because it had already captured 90 per cent of the branded shoe polish market and youngsters had a weird perception about polishing shoes. They felt 'ki yeh to naukaron ka kaam hai' (this is a servant's job)." To debunk this notion, Padamsee use Charlie Chaplin as a character in the ads. Of course, it helped that every Charlie Chaplin film would have a shoe polishing scene.
Celebrity brand endorsements are pretty much a norm now. In the early years, however, their presence in some of the campaigns changed the fortunes of the brand. Since cricket was a rage, many brands roped in top cricketers. Vimal was one of them. In the 80s, the Dhirubhai Ambani-owned Vimal Suitings and Shirtings was a little-known brand aiming to compete with Raymond, which was a household name. To reposition itself, a huge campaign was organised that would feature top cricketers of the time like Allan Border, Ravi Shastri and Vivian Richards. The team came up with the tagline 'Only Vimal' (a campaign that went on for nearly two decades). To shoot the first ad film, A.G. Krishnamurthy roped in ad filmmaker Shantanu Sheorey. The idea was to shoot with Ravi Shastri, Allan Border and Vivian Richards. While Shastri and Border's individual shoots took place, a game of hide-and-seek followed with Vivian Richards. The cricketer cancelled the shoot twice - once, owing to his professional commitment, second time on a whim - before former Indian cricket captain M.A.K. Pataudi coaxed him into shooting the ad, recalls ad filmmaker Shantanu Sheorey in the book.
By the 90s, dramas had gained a greater foothold on Indian television, and the ads began to cash in on the same. As a result, most of them came to be centred on stories, in particular, characters, making way for the rise of advertising mascots. From Cherry Blossom's Cherry Charlie to Surf's Lalitaji, each of them was not only representative of a brand, sometimes their presence towered over the latter. Today, these mascots have nearly disappeared from Indian television. Sridhar attributes this to the fact that these icons "thrived in the trademark advertising days". "Even in the US, we have seen Maytag man, Marlboro man, Tony the Tiger, Mc Donald's Ronald and the Pillsbury Doughboy. Products have matured today, they have become brands. So, advertising too has evolved from sheer awareness to emotional connect to purposeful branding impacting society."
Today, television advertising has changed. "It's too expensive to buy even a 30-second spot. Therefore, impact has been sacrificed for reach and you are seeing the results," says Sridhar. In the digital era, what sort of challenge is TV advertising faced with? "I think we have come a full circle where most TV ads are just selling products and Internet ads are telling stories. Television will continue to exist and so will advertising. But soon, TV will have lesser appointment viewing and more anytime-and-any place viewing. OTT content will become the norm."
In one of his interviews, Alyque Padamsee had said that ads - whether comic, serious or dramatic - are made essentially to sell a product and "that is why advertising exists". Where, then, does creativity fit in, we ask Sridhar. "We are creative salesmen, our job is to help brands meet their commercial objectives. Creativity is the only currency to accumulate more wealth."
anamika@khaleejtimes.com