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. 

... contd.