When all else fails, use sex

A bikini-clad woman selling the possibility of better cement. What that advertisement leaves me with is not the urge to rush out and fortify my home with the product, but the thought that somewhere in the city is an advertising agency waiting to be put out of its misery. That the ad in question has been on television for a while, also proves that in the city is a marketing manager with a single-digit IQ. I'm not entirely surprised.

Advertising agencies have long struggled with a formula for what grabs the attention of your average leery Indian male. When in doubt -- and they have been, for decades-- agencies prefer the scantily-clad nymphet to a genuinely creative idea. Then, by giving themselves pointless awards for this practice, they make sure new generations of copywriters grow up to believe that sex can sell everything from instant noodles to an average broadband connection.

Advertising agencies have long struggled with a formula for what grabs the attention of the Indian male
What did surprise me in this particular instance, however, was the usual lack of pretence attempting to associate the woman with the product.

Keeping in mind my XY chromosomes, I tried reasoning it out. If I were remotely interested in the bikini-clad woman, was I to transfer that interest to the brand she was trying to sell? If I were a mason, would her presence convince me to try and push those bags of cement at my next meeting with a builder? If this was meant to be nothing more complicated than a brand-building exercise, why couldn't I remember what the product was called?

Ultimately, I realised that trying to find a connection was like looking for austerity at a political rally.

Advertisers have been trying hard to introduce the sexual to the mundane for centuries. As early as 1885, tobacco firm W Duke & Sons began inserting trading cards featuring sultry starlets into cigarette packs. They were a successful company within five years. Closer to our time, a moisturising body wash became one of the fastest selling products in the world, thanks to ads depicting a woman in the shower. It really was that easy.

This much we know: Sexuality sells certain attitudes that are inadvertently attached to a product. Cement, however, is little more than a binder. It sets and hardens independently. How is one to think of it as sexy?
What the advertisement now evokes in me is a sense of pity; it makes me look at our advertising agencies with compassion. It's the kind of feeling long reserved, in rural India, for the village idiot.