If viewers are tired of being bombarded with stock images disconnected from reality, the legends of Indian advertising are no less annoyed by the spell of creative ennui in the industry. “Some clichés have been overdone,” says Anand Halve, founder member of Chlorophyll Brand & Communications. “It’s an indication that not much thinking is being done,” agrees adman and director of Corcoise Films, Prasoon Pandey.

The head honchos of the industry helped us come up with a list of formulas that save ad-makers the trouble of creative thinking. They’ve been done to death. Now, they need a fast burial.

A family of clichés: When Alyque Padamsee, the father of Indian advertising, created the no-nonsense housewife Lalitaji for a detergent ad in the ’80s, he was tapping the emerging consciousness of the smart consumer. The result was a national icon. Now, Padamsee has had enough with “smiling, grinning idiotic housewives that dominate the ads.” Pandey cannot understand why the women, whether in the kitchen or the boardroom, are always pictures of unruffled ease, not a strand of hair out of place. Have you wondered why in Indian ads, a woman must shed the sari and slip into western wear to be admitted into the gleaming portals of success and fair skin? “Check any before-and-after transformation ads like Fair& Lovely. The woman always graduates from Indian to western outfits once the promise of the product is realised,” says Halve. For admakers, the sari — and Indian attire in general — is unfashionably provincial, and hence, for the low-end consumer. “In an ad for a low-cost product, the woman always wears Indian clothes. But while peddling a high-end product like washing machine or the plasma TV, she cannot but don a western avatar. It’s only in the public sector communications that you will see a sari-clad woman with a laptop,” says Halve.

Ads have, unarguably, overdone the cute-child formula. Angelic or smart-alecky, kids telling us what to buy from salt (Tata salt) to soap (Rin bar turning into Surf Excel bar), says Padamsee, with the wisdom of adults, is another case of distorted representation. Then, there is the authoritative father. Banished from Bollywood, he has found new life in ads. “The father that you see in ads is not like your or my dad. Have you ever seen a real life dad who will refuse to hold his son’s hand? ( HDFC’s sar utha ke jiyo)?” asks Pandey.

Spike that: Till a year ago, most young men in ads wore spectacles. Now they all have spiky hair. Most are also called Rahul. “I have seen at least 50 commercials in the last year where the boy is called Rahul and at least eight where the girl is called Neha,” says Santosh Desai, former McCann Erickson India president and current CEO of Future Brands. To be young and hip in ads is to be burdened by a theatricality you often see in embarrassing school plays — the only possible explanation for youngsters punching the air or doing the high-five with such frequency. “I have never seen anyone punching the air like that in real life in India. It only happens in ads,” sighs Pandey. “How many teens out there really behave like that?” asks Halve, sighting the case of the girl in the Stayfree ad, who throws her dry napkin at three other friends in the other room. “Only mental bankruptcy can generate such ads,” he says. Or laziness. “Advertisers, like the Indian film industry, don’t bother to find out what young India is like today. That’s why our ads are as stupid as most of our film stories,” says adman-writer Kamlesh Pandey. 

Teachers as morons: This is the revenge of the back-bencher. Teachers in our ads either impart ridiculous lessons to students (a la the Himalayan guru in the Sprite baki sab bakwas ad) or are completely unaware of what’s going on around them. “The Mentos ad where the kid walks out and walks in, with the teacher hardly noticing the difference, the Killer jeans commercial where the student cheats from notes tucked in his underwear strap… the list could go on,” says Halve. 

Rajasthan equals rural India: Think villages and ads give you the golden sand of Rajasthan (Fevicol, Chlormint, ITC water communication, Voltas) This is one Orientalist straitjacket that creative directors can’t seem to escape. “We give Indians a tourist’s eye-view of their own country. We seem to run away from the real rural India because we are often ashamed of its reality,” says Desai. Kamlesh blames the limitations of city-centric imagination for the clichéd representation. “Most of these people have no idea how an Indian village has changed in the last 10 years, where you can even buy cornflakes for a price.”

Sufiana tracks as background music: When soul-stirring Sufi music is used for a cycle ad—urging the rider to scale new heights (Hero)— or a mobile phone ad, one has to wonder about overkill. In fact, Sufi music appears to have replaced the jingle.

Star power: First it was Amitabh Bachchan, who endorsed everything from Dabur Chavanprash to Uttar Pradesh. Next came Shah Rukh Khan and Sachin Tendulkar and now we have Saif Ali Khan, Sania Mirza, Mahendra Singh Dhoni, Rani Mukherji and the junior Bachchan. “We call them video vampires in ad parlance because they end up selling themselves more than the brand. Latching on to a celebrity shows a bankruptcy of ideas,” says Pandey. “Do you think the audience will believe that Shah Rukh, who can afford the costliest cars in the world, will drive a Santro or Big B use Navratna hair oil?” says Pandey. Nah.

Pet hate: Not just humans, says Padamsee, even animals have become trapped by advertising clichés. “They should stop using animals, especially dogs, the way they do now. Even dog food commercials could do with some innovation,” he says.

Lovable canines have become props in an extended happy family picture as they pant aimlessly or goof around. The only dog that has charmed the nation and Padamsee is the pug in the Hutch advertisement. “It’s a milestone. It’s high on emotional equity and yet its promise is not lost. The analogy—Hutch like a dog follows you everywhere — is brilliant.”
The message for ad-makers: kill the cliché and get back to the storyboard.