Wednesday, June 17, 2009

On Some Car and Bike Ads

Have you seen the Honda Jazz ad? The man puts a cactus in his car so he can gift his girlfriend the flower growing on it, and then they leave the plant by the roadside. What are they trying to say? Let's spoil the environment for fun? Let's go burn more oil?

Oh, but maybe I'm being too serious here, and there's a joke I didn't get.*

On the subject of ads, I hate most car and bike ads. They are full of machoist posturing and usually imply that the right bike will help you 'get the girls'. But there have been two two-wheeler ads lately that I love.

The first one is of Hero Honda Passion Pro. It builds a story around one benefit: the bike starts easily. They do talk about 'style' in the voiceover, though. Lovely jingle, too.

The other one is for TVS Scooty Streak. Aimed at women, it's funny and empowering. It's a nice dig at all the other bike commercials that have women wanting to ride pillion to demonstrate the attractiveness of the bike.

I'm glad Hero Honda came up with a good ad for once. TVS Scooty, though, has been using Sania Mirza very well, I think!

*The tagline is "Why so serious?"

5 comments:

Nilesh said...

That Hero Honda Passion add also tries to give social messages - stop at the traffic signal (follow rules) and turn off your vehicle to save fuel. Which is much better than the messaging other bike ads usually try to give - style is in breaking rules.

Sujeet Pillai said...

Haven't you seen the ad where the dude drives miles to say good night to his girlfriend! Tsk.. Tsk.. Tsk..

You're right about car & bike ads in general - I don't know about machoist but they generally put a women's angle into it! Even those car exhibitions, all those models irritatingly blocking the view of those hot cars!!

In terms of Machoist ads I like the new Amul Macho (Baniyaans) ad!! Aakhir mere bhi tho kuch armaan hai! ;-)

The hero honda passion ad also has the woman in the car looking "longingly" at the guy admiring his bike!

@Nil - True.. I especially hate those ads that make fun of poor traffic policemen!

Unmana said...

Nil: I agree!

Sujeet: I did see that ad, but thought it was too ridiculous to even bother about.

I just saw one for Yamaha FZS (if I got the name right) which features lots of bikini-clad women by the roadside.

Maybe these ads are meant to recreate fantasies of (male) ad filmmakers?

And I detest the Amul Macho ad - because it takes the discrimination and harassment that's directed at women every day, inverts it and pretends its funny. Men don't need to be more 'macho'": the world would be a lot better if they were less so.

Suki said...

I loved the Hero Honda Passion ad - apart from what you mentioned, it promotes decent driving and politenesss as opposed to the ruffian-like behaviour we see in most bike ads.

Unmana said...

Suki: I agree with you. That's what Nil also seems to be saying above.