07 November 2010

The sad spider

Found this spider in my garden.  I first thought its carrying its egg case.  But this is the spider's body!
This looks like a very sad spider.

05 November 2010

Influencing Ads

   I did not like the ad of a particular biscuit brand.  In that ad, the younger brother eats all the biscuits and entraps his elder brother who gets scolded by their mom.  There are a few more ads from the same biscuit brand in which kids cause problem for others and get away with it.

   There was a detergent ad where kids splash dirt on another man and then tell him that it can be washed for free because that brand is giving some percent extra for free.  What about the inconvenience caused to that guy.  The detergent may be free, but what about the effort and time required to clean it.

  I have seen similar ads for other products which hint that being bad is OK, entrapping others is OK, being troublesome is OK, causing problems for others is OK.

  Yes, kids are mischievous.  Kids are troublesome.  They do mess up stuff.  But that should be for learning.  Its must not be a right.

  Oh, how I hated those ads.  I striked all these products off my purchase list.

  Then I saw the Mahindra bike ad by Aamir Khan.  There he his making pun of all other bike ads.  Thats when I noticed what other bike ads were hinting at.  And I was buying into their hints all this time!!  I realized its not just kids, but even grown ups mind can be easily manipulated by such ads.

  Thats it!  All those bikes are off the purchase list as well!  From now on, I won't just watch ads.  I'll also watch out for what they are hinting.

  My favourite ad is a person sleeping on a chair at an airport when another person wakes him up and tells him that his hair oil is spoiling the chair.  When the first person asks whats his problem the second person, while wiping the chairs, says that he has paid enough tax to sponsor at least 7-8 chairs for the airport.

   A  bike guy hits my bike from behind and then shouts at me.  I see a bike guy jump a signal and is hit by a car but the car guy is forced to pay.  A student gets thrown out of the class for misconduct but the teacher is forced to apologize.

   I don't think these guys are getting influenced by the ads.  Its these kind of behaviour that is depicted in such ads.  And it propagates.  Because of both ads and what they see around them.

   Looking at the trend in human behaviour, my list of not-to-purchase-items may grow for ever.  Maybe I should prepare a people-to-avoid list as well...