Yeh dil maange no moral

Commercials that use sexuality in traditionally asexual relationships are catching mindspace

Less than three years ago, a new bride, almost in the throes of an orgasm, washed her husband's briefs at a dhobi ghaat. The moral police went berserk, the ad was termed lewd, vulgar, against Indian culture.

Today, a cocky teenager flirts with his girlfriend's mother, a girl makes a pass at her supposed brother-in-law... and no one raises an eyebrow. Have we finally put the moral police to sleep?

Tie me not

Prahlad Kakar reasons: "We don't want to be tied down any more. The youth wants to do exactly what they're not supposed to. They want to find out on their own what works for them."

It's not altogether a new phenomenon though. More than two decades ago, Kakar made it okay for a girl to come on strongly to a guy when he got Aishwarya Rai to do the "Hi, I'm Sanjana" number for a Pepsi commercial. "Sanjana is classy. The kind of girl who looks at a guy knowing exactly the effect she has on him.

She expects him to jump up and get whatever she summons him to. And he does," he explains.

Kakar points out a recent American commercial for Hardee Hamburger featuring culinary expert Padma Lakshmi devouring a hamburger bursting with meat and sauce on a sidewalk. "She manages to look sexy without becoming cheap. Though at the end of the ad, you're not sure whether you want the hamburger or Miss Lakshmi," says Kakar, laughing out loud.

But what Kakar finds really offensive is the Wild Stone deodorant commercial in which a curly-haired girl pretends to trip so that her hunky brother-in-law who smells oh-so-irresistible can pick her up. "The idea itself sucks. It's not a legitimate relationship. Why would you want your brand to be associated with something like that?"

Television viewer Pranav Kanakia, 26, businessman, doesn't think so. "I take such ads as jokes. They're not offensive. They leave a lasting impression and isn't that what works for the brand?" Kakar counters, "There are certain things which go on behind closed doors but you don't show them off to the public. It's not done."

The thin red line

A few months ago, a commercial for Sprite featured a man coming clean to his girlfriend whom he was two-timing... and no one seemed to mind. Maker of that ad, Ogilvy & Mather's Piyush Pandey, thinks it's because it wasn't essentially immoral. "He does speak the truth. And there's no mention of sexual relations with either of the girls. We were careful about how we portrayed it and the ad was loved."

The creative director feels that there's a very thin line between the likeable and the offensive. He says, "In advertising, there's the pleasant surprise and the irritating shock. You need to be aware of what your commercial inspires in your target audience."

Speaking of thin lines, the Virgin Mobile commercial which sees a collegian openly flirting with his girlfriend's mother seems to be at a precarious edge. M A Madhusudan, CEO, Virgin Mobile, has a clear-cut explanation for the 'twisted' campaign the brand is coming to be associated with.

"My aim is to grab attention within a short span of time and a limited budget. All our ads need to have that extra edge, a zingu00e2u0080u00a6 something that will get the youth talking." And they do. Why, there's even a 'Virgin Mobile Aunty' fan club on a popular networking website.

A freelance writer-editor Gayatri Chandrasekaran, 29, believes the campaign works because the new generation is a lot more open about things like the attraction older women hold for young boys.
"Everyone's bringing things out of the closet. Also, Virgin as a brand has always had an image of 'everything chalta hai' so it works."

But Tullika Rao, instructional designer, 31, disagrees. "Such campaigns are low on creativity. Like my dad says, what does the Virgin 'aunty' ad have to do with the phone? They rely on shock value."

Shock value is what seems to have worked for Amul Macho as well. True, the dhobi ghaat ad led to a big controversy. Even Piyush Pandey openly admits his dislike, "It was a bad ad. I've designed innerwear campaigns which are perfectly classy and don't even feature people," he says referring to the VIP Frenchie campaign in which a lady's underwear cosies up to a male brief on a clothesline."

Pushpinder Singh, CEO, Saints and Warriors, the brain behind the 'Yeh toh bada toinng hai' Amul Macho commercials, disagrees. "The brand has an image which is raw, elemental and masculine. I think most guys were secretly thrilled with the ad."

The latest commercial takes a dig at metrosexuality, stressing on the term 'abla mard'. Tired of being bossed by women, a helpless man finds his true 'male' self as soon as he pulls on an Amul Macho vest.

"If you've noticed the end of the advert, the women like the 'all-male' man," smiles Singh. Criticism doesn't bother Singh because the brand has apparently seen a 100 per cent growth in sales year on year "which wouldn't be the case if people didn't like the ad or the brand".

But pray, what does 'toinng' mean and whose idea was it? Singh's apparently. "It doesn't mean anything. It's open to interpretationu00e2u0080u00a6 in my dictionary, it could be crafty, naughty, schemingu00e2u0080u00a6 whatever."

We'll settle for 'whatever.' After all as Gabriel Garcia Marquez put it in Memories of My Melancholy Whores, "Morality too is a question of time."