Been noticing some really, really sucky ad campaigns for a while. I mean, these would have belonged to Ramanand’s JaDE Hall of Shame, but I cringe from sullying that hallowed institution by adding these folks.

1.Harpic: Yes, we’ve all see the close-up shots of people’s loos and Aman Verma the bhangi showing us how to clean them, on TV. But apparently this didn’t increase sales enough, because these guys came out with a lucky draw scheme. Stop for a moment and try to think up a name for such a scheme. Go on. Whatever you thought, it doesn’t have any hint of Loos, toilets, suchlike in it, right? But no, our geniuses went ahead and named the campaign ‘Pot banaye Kismat Hot’. To emphasize exactly what ‘pot’ they’re talking about, the logo (sic) for this campaign has a western toilet seat in the o’s of ‘Pot’ and ‘Hot’. Lovely.

2.Godrej Hair dye: Well, these guys created some new hair colours, Auburn and Copper and whatever names makes women think they’re exciting colours. They then created a print ad with photos of models wearing said colour dyes. So far so good; now you’ve got a quarter page ad with like 6 headshots and ‘auburn’ and whatnot under each shot. Now comes the genius. They took this lovely ad, and saved money on the campaign by... printing the ad in the inner BLACK AND WHITE pages of all the major newspapers. All the models now look grey-haired. Thank you.

3.So there’s this ten minute radio program on Vividh Bharati that comes on every morning. Stop right here. Think of the target audience for a RADIO program. Well, whatever you thought of, this particular program isn’t reaching its target audience for sure. It’s a program talking about types of HEARING AIDS and is sponsored by Mandke Hearing Services. This is like having a silent ad on TV advertising white canes.

4. Tiny ad in the Aaj Ka Anand paper advertising a new housing scheme. Ad extols how close it is to all the facilities: Only few minutes from Airport, Railway Station, Camp, Schools, Yeravada. I swear to you, these are the five ‘facilities’ listed in that ad. For those not in the know, Yeravada is a Pune Suburb most famous for its Paagalkhana and for its prison. So these guys are basically saying that you, target audience, are going to be in and out of mental hospitals and jail all the time, why not buy our place, it’ll be more convenient for your relatives when they want to visit you?