Download Gimmicks rule the ad space K Naresh Kumar looks into the growing

Gimmicks rule the ad space
K Naresh Kumar looks into the growing breed of irresponsible advertisements to promote film
CRIMINALISATION OF affairs Indian has been conveniently exploited by not only vested interests but
also by some streetsmart film producers who have been hawking mindless celluloid dreams over the
years. A crashing failure in its original version in Telugu, the film Criminal directed by the maverick
director Mahesh Bhatt, shot into media limelight recently when advertisements for the impending release
of the dubbed Hindi version "Killed” its heroine Manisha Koirala and plunged the whole nation into a
“mourning” of sorts. And that the unrepentant producer blamed the media for omitting the crucial word
“advertisement” in its display is by now a much-discussed event.
Controversies apart, time and again, producers have been known to resort to extreme sensationalism to
pep up their filmi products and ensure a curiosity value in the media for it. Over the past three months two
films — Sanam Bewafa and Taqdeerwala — had come up with advertisements which read like news
reports. The first one said “Kishen Kumar arrested” showing the not-so-stunning hero behind the bars and
the copy went on to detail the actual sequence of the film in which the hero shoots the heroine when she
ditches him for another.
When the advertisement appeared, sniggers went around in film circles as to how the producer, Gulshan
Kumar could have saved himself only by putting his brother (the hero) behind bars as he was otherwise
proving to be a non-starter, despite two carefully launched earlier home productions. Nobody took the ad
and the film seriously and that it did work wonders at the box-office, with or without the placing of this
particular advertisement, is besides the point.
Then in the Hyderabad media, the southern hero, Venkatesh’s second Hindi film — Taqdeerwala — was
advertised in a rather sensational manner when the copy read "Venkatesh gets Bruce
Lee’s soul...” which went on as usual describing how a rather normal person like him goes berserk when
he is “possessed" in one of the sequences in the film which makes him bash the daylights out of the
goons who harass him. Since the film was a wash-out throughout India, it did not make much difference
who got whose soul as long as it did not plunge the city into chaos.
In both the above advertisements, however, the word “advt” was displayed at the fag end of the copy
making people sit up and take notice only to the extent it deserved attention. But in the case of Criminal
obviously things had gone too far and turned too realistic for the producer-distributor team to dismiss it off
as a “stunt”. And the lapses on the part of the dailies which had carried the advertisement did not exactly
help matters with all of them under criminal complaints lodged by the police.
“As an advertisement, it can still pass muster for the kind of film it is,” said a space marketing executive
with a local newspaper who saw the film on the opening day out of sheer curiosity. Talking to this reporter
outside a central Delhi theatre, she said, “I am told that the newspapers which carried the advertisement
for this film did not specify that it was an advertisement. This, I think, is unethical and quite naturally the
people would have got upset and anxious.”
Abhijit Dasgupta, an accounts executive with National Advertising Agency, New Delhi, goes a step
further, “I am of the opinion, by and large, Indian public is not educated enough to digest such
advertisements and do not have the maturity to sift between the reel and the real.” Queried whether he
would have been party to such an ad finding its way into the Press if the account was handled by him,
Dasgupta retorts, “I am not in favour of such cheap gimmicks. But I can only express an opinion to my
client and will leave it at that.” Now that the advertisement has caused its damage, how does he feel
about it? “For a Hindi action film, such ads are normal,” he says.
L Ramachandran, a public sector executive and an avid newspaper reader, says, "It is much ado about
nothing. On different occasions, newspapers have themselves known to sensationalise and exaggerate
events to suit their convenience. In Madras, all hell broke loose when a magazine carried a news item in
the April 1 issue that reputed director K Balachander had married bombshell heroine, Khushboo. That it
was an April Fool joke was not taken lightly by the cine people. The magazine was made to issue an
unconditional apology,” Ramachandran recalls.
Reactions from the film fraternity in the Capital are mixed. While there is no doubt that the advertisement
is being considered “unhealthy’, a veteran film watcher and a PR person attached to local distribution
offices, S L Purohit, says, “By such unnecessary sensationalism and rumourmongering, the producer has
not got anywhere. This man has gone about saying it is an original Hindi film while it is alleged to be
dubbed from Telugu. There seems to be no shame while he goes about doing such hoodwinking. And
then the film has had only an average response vindicates the contempt which people have had for such
stunts.”
“Coming in the wake of a terrorist threat on Manisha’s life, this ad could have been avoided,” says a
leading distributor who refuses to be named. Calling such English-titled films as “urban attractions”, the
distributor adds, “Small town people anyway would not see the film because there was such a sensational
advertisement in its favour.”
Meanwhile Jagdish Bhatia of Super Art International, the firm which has distributed the film in Delhi-UP
territory scotches all the above speculations and forecasts, “I have 23 prints in circulation all over the
place and I cannot believe that I am getting equal response from the big centres like Allahabad, Lucknow
and Kanpur as well as smaller towns like Firozabad and Ranipur. This film has outbeaten two others
which was released along with it and I am getting fixed hire amounts, three to four times more than
normal releases in recent times.” The publicity, good or bad has managed an impetus for the film.
Aesthetics and ethics are secondary, obviously.