Wednesday, July 22, 2009

Where have the Dream Merchants gone?


Recently I have seen a dearth of good ideas in Television advertisements. The 80's and 90's saw wonderful advertisements made and dished out. In fact the 80's gave way to a new experimental look and most advertisements settings shifted from the rural to urban areas.

In my teenage, we used to watch a program on Zee TV named "The Dream Merchants". It was a half an hour long program but me and my sister used to wait for the end 5 minutes. The series was about add film makers, their latest adds, their interviews etc. The end 5 minutes, advertisements from different countries were shown. Most of them didn't even need us to understand the language and that was the best part.As the years approached towards the millennium, many foreign adds were copied by our Indian add film makers (yes believe me its true). First example that comes to mind was the Aamir-Mahima and Aishwarya Pepsi Add.

Many other's but can't recall; we learnt them only because of that advertisement based Tele-series.But today as I watch the television, I hardly see an advertisement worth remembering.Or anything which makes me feel "Wow, that creative". Don't we deserve to have more adds like "Jalebi"(Dhaara), "Kuch khaas hai hum sab hi mein "(Cadbury), "Main Khush hun aaj khwaamakha"(Cadbury).

The add film maker's of today need to udnerstand we don't need star power in an add to make it look good.[Pepsi- Bubbly adds featuring Shahrukh, Kareena, Priaynka were horrible]. The best advertisements for me are still the ones that had nameless faces.

-"Kya hua?...Bachi ro rhi hai...Oodwards dede...wahi to main tujhe deti thi...jab tum chotee the" (Oodwards -tonic)

-"Are you ready for the magic...Let the magic began. " (Pepsi)

- "Itne kapde ek saath koi machine mein nhi dho sakta" (Videocon washing machine)May be the Add film makers are channelizing their energies in the wrong directions...they need good Ideas...and not Big actors.

Hoping makers like Vidhu Vinod chopra(He made the Remo and Juhi Chawla Starring Pepsi add) and Alyque Padamsee venture out again and give a queue or more to the current Add film makers who will remain only film makers if they carry on like this. They need to come out with more if they want to become Dream Merchants.

2 comments:

  1. Now that's creativity. ;)
    You made me nostalgic by making me remember those old ads.
    Keep up the good work honey.

    ReplyDelete
  2. Thanx dear...I remebered we both watched the "Dream Merchants" togeher...and were always waiting for the last 5 minutes of advertisements :)

    ReplyDelete