TV Advertisement for FMCGs
Have you ever seen in a TV advertisement the model/actor squeeze toothpaste from a tube whose contents have already been used? The honest answer, I will give on your behalf, no. Whether it is a mom or dad squeezing the tube onto the bristles of the toddler’s brush, the paste covers end to end. Why? It is not the concern for the health of the young one’s teeth(which is anyway only the milk teeth, and would soon fall off). It is about brainwashing the parents. If you didn’t do that, watch out for your kid’s milk teeth! This fear sells the tooth paste and makes it fly-off the store shelf.
Hence FMCG is Fast Moving Consumer Goods.
No model worth her salt would apply lipstick in an advertisement from a lipstick that is usedperhaps a dozen times. There is something erotic (I did not want to say pornographic) about the stick coming out of the glittery casing, all fresh and gleaming, as just about any TVadvertisement shows. But, why not men apply a half-used roll on in their armpits? They just do not and I haven’t the foggiest. Armpits are where half the cockroaches in New York City find their homesteads, perhaps; a severe turn-off.
The hairspray, that lasts for 12 hours! Most girls would wish that it did not last that long, just so they can flick their hair coquettishly! The hairspray, when it is worked to let hair curve around the front of the earlobes just so people can appreciate the diamond ear drop the woman is wearing (yes, I watch these things). The hairspray also loses its function when a woman runs her fingers through her hair, another affectation. Of course, you do not see these in the TV commercial, in which the hair remains unruffled.
Somehow this commercial−for toilet cleaning−comes on whenever I sit down in front of TV to munch on some snacks, or even sit down for a meal. Yuck, as the dirty toilet commode comes into full view. I would like the makers of these cleaners request the users to tell them their breakfast / lunch / evening snack / dinner / supper times (even a non-toll free number is OK).
Would you ever try to test how effective your laundry detergent is by splashing coffee/tea/chocolate on your spotless white gown? I thought not, unless, of course, you are filming a TV commercial for that brand of detergent. I have a bright yellow kurta in which my pen leaked blue ink. It carries a big splotch that cannot be hidden (like one can at the armpit). If someone could tell me how to get in touch with the director of the commercial, I can get my kurta thoroughly cleaned to show off its brilliant, bright yellow.
I bought this brand of razor and the shaving cream because it promised no cuts. I have half a mind to sue the company. Whenever I splash after shave lotion on my freshly saved face(never without at least one cut), I hear the scream of the youngster inadvertently left alone in the movie Home Alone.
But, that is not how the product is advertised. It makes your skin feel cold like blue sky (does blue sky feel cold? I don’t know), the ad claimed. I learned in high school that blue flame is hotter than a red flame. Can the sky be blue and cool and a flame be blue and truly hot? I did not ask my high school science teacher.
In the place I come from, a cloudless sky in brilliant blue means scorching sun, nothing less. Someone has to tell the company to show only those commercials that are appropriate to thetarget audience where they live.
There was a time when to avoid a newer version of, say, a deodorant was named “new and improved” and the name was retained. Not so anymore. The old is just forgotten. The new one is not new; it is the only game in town. Makers of that product do not want you to know that something existed earlier or remember that something had been substituted. Earlier there was something called brand loyalty. Now there is no loyalty, brand or no brand.
Oh, what about baby diapers. Do mothers know how their newborns feel the difference between cloth diapers (to be changed perhaps a few times more through the day than the store-bought ones with cushiony bottoms)? I thought babies’ tush themselves are very cushiony! What do I know?
I have not run down my list of FMCGs on which I have had bad, worse and the worst experiences. No, the few readers may get tired of my griping. Then, let me suggest a remedy for them: the one and only Woodward’s Gripe Water!
Raghuram Ekambaram
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