Some More Ads

The competition of ad making (mentioned in the previous post) took only one entry from each participant. I did some more ads considering they might be useful in further rounds, but these were never a part of the competition. But since I worked on them I wanted to play them to the audience and I went ahead with it. The ads that were done are the ad for Big FM and Kamasutra Condoms.

The original ad that was taken for Big FM was of some phone which was portraying its mp3 player functionality. I changed it and used it for a FM brand. I changed the background score and inserted the Big FM brand at the end. Though I felt, the concept did not gel well with that of the FM, I was happy with sound synchronization I was able to achieve using a basic tool like movie maker in windows. In the ad, as soon as the guy presses a button on his phone, the score starts. That was some Michael Jackson’s clip. It starts off with a sound of glass crashing and then the drum beats start. The guy just then starts swaying his head with the rhythm and I think the score has even gelled well with the man’s abuses. I do not remember the song that played in the original ad but I felt that this score has brought much more energy into the ad.

The ad that was taken for condoms ad was the Himalayan mountain water. I happened to notice the ad for the first time on some news channel in college and I immediately felt that this concept could be perfectly used for a condom. I did not change much in this ad. I just cut the portions where Himalayan mountain water was used and inserted a clip of Kamasutra condoms and put a tagline at the end. The concept in the mountain water ad was that everything was going back to its original form. The woollen scarf of the guy turns into a sheep; the bag the girl carries breaks down to its original form; the wooden guitar turns into a tree, the shirt of the guy turns into cotton and the girls skirt into a silk worm and then both jump into a pool of water. The original ad tried to portray the purity of things in their original form and so the purity of water was hinted as they were sourced from their origin, the Himalayan Mountains. If the original ad showed purity by regressing things back to their original form, I used the same concept to portray that everything was moving back in time. So, as things were moving back in time, the guy and the girl also go back in time to become Adam and Eve. What could be a better selling point for sex, than the successful union of the first couple. I tried to position the condom as the forbidden fruit. The forbidden fruit was the reason, Adam was attracted to Eve and the rest is history. I wanted to position the condom not on the basic utility of it, of avoiding reproduction, but as a something which enhances the process. The couple using it should experience the same feeling as Adam and Eve after using it. And the jump of the couple into the pool symbolized that they were getting themselves involved completely into the mood. And then the logo comes followed by the tagline, “Gets the ‘Adams’ and ‘Eves’ out of you.” Initially the competition coordinator (one of my classmates), was hesitant to play the ad since it was a condom ad and the file name read ‘kamasutra.wmv’. And a warning that appears initially was only a tactic to attract some eyeballs, since people tend to get interested when something proclaims itself as something which cannot be shown but is being shown. The response to the ad once it was played was overwhelming and I had people congratulating me for my guts to play such ads in college. On the whole, a different experience.

The Ad that took me to the Final

As part of an ad making competition, I had made this ad in my first year of study. The concept of the competition was to take existing ads and make it suitable for other products.

This was an ad for ponds cold cream. The original ad consisted of different emotions portrayed by women. It depicted that face speaks for you. Therefore you need to have good looking face which could achieved by ponds cream. I found that the concept of emotions being portrayed by women could also be used for greeting cards. The ad consisted of women portraying emotions with their faces and were not verbal. I felt that as a card company, it can position itself as someone who has the words for all your expressions. That is, the company knows what you feel, and what you want to say. That thought formed the basis for the ad. I immediately modified and put in some tag lines and a greeting card brand and made it an ad for cards from Hallmark. I also took care into detailing aspect of the ad. The background score was changed and the popular Rehmans score for jeans was used. The use of pink colour for the background was also deliberate. Firstly, it was used to get a feminine tinge to the ad. Secondly, it was done to match with the colour of the top worn by the girl shown at the last so that there wouldn't be any drastic change of colours which would be taxing on the eyes of the viewer.The result was I was into the final round.

The feeling that I had when the ad was playing in the dark auditorium on a projector being viewed atleast by 200 people and I was on the stage looking at my work is unexplainable.