The Art of Advertisement

This is the era of Marketing, Packaging and Brand strategies. The same product can sell in different proportions according to the strategy, but irrespective of anything the Customer still remains the King, as for the first time he may be swayed away, but for the second time he will definitely think twice.

This is also an era of changing preferences when Men took to adopting practices followed by women like using fairness creams and makeups while Women striving to become men in their bob cut hairs and straight cut trousers. And in this journey so many interesting things happen when people forget the basic ideas and strive to go for a make-believe world and start following advertisements religiously than their own minds.

Now let's re-create an interesting situation out of this through a drama:

Storyline: Set in the Indian sub-continent in the 21st century.

Characters in the play: a popular deodorant/ body-spray, which prides itself for guys turning out to be lady-killers within seconds of using it, a fairness cream both for men and women, a detergent supposed to remove all the stains from the world, a reputed multinational FMCG company owning it, a young handsome good-looking guy, an ugly maid working in his house, a lawyer, a typist and 2 other ladies.

Now the Plot: Scene 1: A young handsome guy was scorned and rejected by his girlfriend for being lethargic in bed and unable to pleasure her after nights of encounters. Feeling dejected and unable to control his hormones, he was just sipping a cup of Coffee to arouse his male senses and took the remote to derive some pervert pleasure from all those shows that runs on TV channels, which claim to be music channels, but without any music and air shows which bring out the voyeur in you and me.

As it happens in came the commercial break. He generally skips channels during the breaks, but oh so suddenly he saw something while passing through, and started hitting the reverse button frantically with his eyes being lit up like the full moon, when he saw a group of lingerie clad girls running out in the city behind a pimple faced thick spectacle wearing geeky faced lad. Since he started midway, so before understanding on how it all happened only the name of the product came.

And now he eagerly waits in the same channel to catch the same ad again and prayed to happen it sooner. Hours went by and finally his eyes were struck and mind amazed to what he saw. That same pimple faced guy mistakenly applies his roommates deodorant in his body before going for the tuitions and sexy chicks shedding their clothes without any inhabitation leaving only their last strings, whoever passes by him and start following him.

His eyes couldn't believe what he saw and then he starts plotting for his own kill with his fully aroused uncontrollable senses missing the night encounters for the last few days. With his raging hormones he quickly heads of to the shopping mart. First he buys a full crate of all the different versions of the same deodorant and all other grooming products that are advertised as lady killers. He initially thinks of trying the magic there itself but he doesn't want to take any chances and can't wait to reach home.

After reaching home, he reads the fine-print carefully, so that everything works out perfectly like that guy in the ad. He stored them in a cool and dry place, and kept them away from direct light or heat. He even beat up his 5-year-old nephew that day for coming near his closet, as they had instructed it to keep away from children’s reach.

Now he starts pondering about the targets. His raging instincts suggest him to not to try those on sexy good-looking chicks at the first go, but rather to go for a ordinary-looking someone and test the magic of heaven. When he was completely lost in trying to figure out the dream lady, the doorbell rings. And he finds his target, he knew it is time for the maid to come, and co-incidentally she also stays alone after fighting with her husband over a year back.

His mind says she must also be as un-satisfied like him, and to top it all she is also ugly with a poor lifestyle. The choice can't be better. So he opens the door and quickly heads off for his bed room and just pulls the curtains. Their he sprays all the variants of the deodorants and body-sprays to make sure the maid gets turned on as they show in the television and in order to be perfect he takes a ruler before applying the spray and makes sure that the distance between the nozzle and his armpit was at least 15 centimetres as written in the fine-print.

He completely goes nude with his organ struggling to stretch more at the anticipation, for his maid to finish cleaning the other rooms and start over his bedroom. Seconds seem to be like hours for him with his eyes firmly fixed at the curtains. For the first time he had a better look at the fading colours and prints of the curtain. In his lost gaze, at the slight of a second the curtain seemed to fell off completely and there stands his queen of his dreams standing with her eyes struck and illuminated like the cat in a dark room.

When the hungry lion was about to pounce on to the next move, suddenly something strikes badly and the organ start wriggling furiously. Before trying to understand the severity of the impact in comes another blow of the broom, which was just purchased two days back.

After the storm settled down and only the sound of glow worms were audible, the lions mind becomes furious at the deception and humiliation suffered at the hands of an ugly poor maid. At the rage he throws all the newly purchased cans and bottles at the TV smashing its screens.

Next day morning he wakes up to the slumbering thoughts of the incidents of the infamous previous evening. Just like his everyday habit when he mindlessly takes his remote he gets shocked to see the state of affairs of the TV. Slowly he walks on and pick up a crushed bottle, writes the manufacturer name and firmly decides to take it to court

Scene 2: As he reaches the courtyard of the bustling city Court, everyone passing by him mistook him to be a Perfume vendor and wonders about a new breed of a seller there. Laughing faces of other vendors mocking at his new business idea become visible as he walks on to one Lawyer's room. And hastily the lawyer screams, no sales man allowed and snugs at exasperation. "From where do these scoundrels come". But the guy pushes through and he slowly and gently narrates his entire tale.

For once the lawyer started feeling as if he is in his dreams, but after hearing the poignant tale from a young chap he decides to fight it out and more so because he himself has also been a victim of the same cause. For once he felt the ideal guy to narrate his similar own work life incident which he has kept to himself for the fear of being mocked at. Now here is the perfect guy to narrate too.

Scene 3: flashback- It was a warm summer day, when the lawyer was sipping a glass of sugar-cane juice outside the court premises, his sight fell on what he termed as the most gorgeous princess in the world. No-body could take sight out of her. She slowly faded into the background and when he returned to his room thinking about his next case, to the dis-belief of him, there she was sitting in the plush sofa his chamber with her skirts only till knee length and moving surreptitiously... Slowly he came to know how her family pressurizes here for more education, when she wants to settle down for her own family life with the search on for her dream-boy.

And there the lawyers mind lit up to a distant possibility. First he suggests her to go for a decree against her parents for mentally torturing her and that she want to stay away from their parents, which after her initial hesitation, finally agreed to it. After reaching home he started behaving a little strangely. While watching his daily dose of evening news every few minutes he was taking a look at the mirror and wondering whether such a pretty lady would prefer a dark skinned man like him.

He even started doubting his masculinity after watching a TV commercial where in an 'Swayamvara' (a practice of choosing a life partner, from among a list of suitors, by a girl of marriageable age), a pretty girl chose only the man with a fair skin out of all other dark skinned guys and mocking at their inner senses. So the next day he purchased all kinds of fairness creams and body sprays and use them before starting off for office and on some pretext or the other use to call his pretty client to charm her.

Slowly as their acquaintance grew, he started coming perfectly groomed after applying loads of fairness cream, aftershaves, perfumes and deodorants, whose smell even the neighbour in the next door could also get and started to invite her for a outing in the evening for coffee, shopping or movie. But somehow the lady was dis-interested in his advances. She rejected those and out rightly remained cold even after winning the case. She once publicly mocked him in front of his colleagues of how he looked like a clown in all the white cream oozing from his face and a bad odour coming out of his body...So he decides to fight for justice now.

Scene 4: And when men are making merry, how can women be left behind. These are times of equality and women demanding the same pie. As news spread of the litigation, two girls also came out of nowhere to share similar tales. One was a Typist who wanted to become an Air Hostess and the other one was spurned by her lover, for destroying his favourite shirt, which he specially got it prepared from a reputed fashion designer in Italy for a million rupees.

In the first case, a bright pretty young girl aspires to become an air hostess after clearing her masters with the top result in the best University of the country. After her days outing with her friends, she comes home freshens up and while browsing through channels, she spots an ad where a girl is being rejected from becoming an air hostess, just because she was dark skinned and that somehow struck her.

Inspite of having a perfect complexion, she starts doubting herself and for the whole night just keeps her pocket mirror beside her. Even when she wakes up in the morning, her hand unconsciously moves toward the pocket mirror beside her pillow. And that day she purchases loads of fairness creams and start applying it religiously. During the interview day for her dream air hostess job, the interviewers spot she was trying to focus their attention more on her skin than her knowledge and was shown the door straightaway.

On returning home, for the first time she could spot and realize not just her knowledge but also her otherwise flawless skin is showing signs of deterioration with creases and wrinkles coming in. With her skin healing slowly, she has to settle for an ordinary typist job in a grocery store and now whenever the sound of a jet whooshes past above her head, she just stares at them blankly.

Now, the tale of the second lady: She had a perfect relationship and a perfect man in her life which very few can only dream off. Her to-be-husband was the only son of a billionaire and the owner of the biggest brewery in the country and also most parts of the world. The only thing being she had to spend many half-fulfilled nights.

It was once she saw of a detergent ad which could remove any stains in the world (perhaps the mind also) and that stains were better. One day after a day's shopping she wanted to prove her boyfriend that the detergent she brought that day has miracles and can remove any stain in the world and before he could speak anything, she pours in a bit of warm coffee in his favourite shirt which he specially got made from a reputed fashion designer in Italy.

She uses just 2 capfuls of detergent in half a bucket of water with 4 clothes for the best result. She doesn't wring them but dry it in shade. But the guy after spotting crumpled threads in the shirt and faded colour, phones the girl's father to either pay a million bucks or take her girl away and then beating her mercilessly with his belt with wounds pouring out generously out of her body and later shown the door. And for the girl, she never could fathom why his guy became so furious when he his closet was full with the costliest shirts of earth and has so many of those similar ones.

Scene 5: And now here are two young guys and gals in their late thirties who were broomed, mocked, rejected, bruised, sitting opposite each other all striving for vengeance as they file a case against the manufacturers of these products for cheating and causing them mental suffering. They surrender all their used, unused and half-used deodorant sprays, perfume sticks and roll-ons, anti-perspirants, aftershaves, body washes, shampoos, hair gels, fairness creams and detergents to the court, and demanded a laboratory test of the products and narcotics test of the brand managers of the manufacturers.

They claimed that they had been using all the products as per the company’s instructions even since they first bought them. They argued that if they couldn't experience the desired result despite using the products as directed, either the company was making false claims or selling fake products.

The manufacturer companies argue that these two guys and gals were hopelessly unattractive and unintelligent and didn't possess the bare minimum requirements for the required effects to take place as was shown in their ads.

Epilogue: As destiny would have it these two guys and gals slowly start developing feelings towards each other and finally the first guy settle for the second lady with both now craving more hours during nights with the guy learning from his earlier mistake and often the Broom coming in his dreams.

The lawyer settles with the typist and now after years of being with law books with her husband, she has become an expert advisor in personal law related matters and the lawyer gets the best company he can expect for with both getting lost in each other for most of the times.

disclaimer: All the characters, products, advertisements and companies in this drama are completely fictional and a figment of the authors imagination. Any similarity or resemblance between famous/non-famous persons living, deceased or fictional or products is purely coincidental.