Palashda had once told me that advertisement industry in the west is pretty much matured and advanced whereas in India, as usual, getting matured and in middle east it's still in late childhood! No wonder I had some expectations on advertisements after coming to USA. This is what I got!
Advertisements here can be divided in main six categories.
- Food and food chains
- Advocates & Law firms
- Insurance
- Medicines
- Cars
- and others
Food related ads are really very stereotype except one or two. Insurance and law firm ads are the worst in the entire sector, either entirely out of context or totally vague. Medicines have the longest ads on TV, and they are boring. However, they follow a very common pattern; first they describes a very common feeling, then makes it a point to prove that that is actually a disease and then gives you the cure along with the side effects! ...
'Does your head jerk when you sneeze?'
'You may be suffering from sneeze-jerk disease!'
'Ask your doctor for sneezocure! Side effects may include nausea, sleepiness, lethargy, occasional urge for sex and gambling, depression, occasional urge for suicide, etc.'
Car advertisements are typical just like any other car commercial in any part of the world.
One or two are creative others are normally just eye candy and few are really dumb. 90% of the all commercials are the first five categories. Rest 10% others are also nothing notesworthy.
In Indian TV, the products, whose commercials are shown are pretty varied. So we have a huge range of advertisements and some of them are really good. The worst ads are shown in regional channels, poorly packaged and poorly executed ads. No US ads are of such low quality but the Law firms' ads often are on the verge of competing with these regional channel ads! But in National TV of India commercials are really well packaged and aggressive. Some of them are really heartwarming like classsic Raymond, Cadbury or Titan ads. Indian commercials are I felt not less matured, if not more, than US commercials.
