Tuesday 14 April 2009

The stupidest IPL ad ever

Is not up on youtube yet, but when it is, I'll be sure to link. It's screening on Australian televisions at the moment on a FTA sports channel.

Andrew Symonds walks into an Indian restaurant.
Indian family who work there whisper "it's Andrew Symonds!"
Chef puts spices and chillies into a curry.
Symonds is served the curry. Family watches in background in a stupid way.
Curry is extremely hot, Symonds flaps around for a bit, surprised by the spiciness.
Family looks at each other in confusion.
Symonds turns around and winks at the family.
VO: "Can Andrew Symonds and our Aussies take the heat of the IPL?"
Closing titles of IPL broadcasting details, surrounded by pictures of chillies.

Apparently the only thing our marketing folk associate with India is chillies. Fucking hell, what a ridiculous ad.

Hey, here it is, courtesy of an anonymous fellow, or lady:

18 comments:

Unknown said...

So...the IPL is located in an Indian restaurant?? Am I to believe a restaurant bested England and South Africa?? Sounds like a fail. :(

Homer said...

The same ad appeared with KP in it when India toured England in 2007. Was on Sky though.

Amy said...

rhoe, there seems to be no real connection between the restaurant and the IPL. If only they'd gone with a more cliched montage of shots from last year's IPL.

Homer, are you saying that KP winked at a camera?
And way to recycle ideas around the globe.

12th, I've seen one where Dhoni is dressed in a loincloth and he's got this ridiculously huge cigar or something. Does that kind of ad count?

Ankit Poddar said...

there is more to india than spices?!

Amy said...

Cricket :)

12th Man said...

Bingo! Amy. That's one example of the poor northerner's attempt to mimick the south indian accent/culture.

Chennai and Delhi/Mumbai are like two different sides of the coin. There is nothing in common, though the coin as a whole is Indian. In ethnology terms, we belong to a completely different race.

In Chennai, we don't have any affiliation to Bollywood. People here are more conservative,religious and orthodox, and are frugal/thrifty.

The North and the Central/West is absolutely the opposite.

Amy said...

So none of these types of ads sit well with your crowd? haha. We have a similar, but stupider, thing going on in Australia with the mainland basically bashing Tasmania at every opportunity. I don't even think anyone remembers why anymore.

It's sort of just a name-calling competition. That, and making incest jokes about Tassies.

Maithreyi said...

Ha ha, that Dhoni Pepsi ad was a HUGE hit in Chennai as well. Come to think about it, the film culture in Chennai can be just as wild, if not as grandiose, as Bollywood.

That ad was a cleverly-made dig at the superstar-culture prevalent here, and seriously - if you can't laugh at yourself, what're you gonna laugh at?

Utterly weird ads with Symonds and spices and the weirdly surprising fact that they're separately promoting the IPL on Australian TV, apparently.

12th Man said...

There are so-many superstars to laugh at Maithreyi, and that is what we invaraibly end up doing.

But you don't associate Chennai (or South India for that matter) with superstars alone.

That shows the ignorance they have about this part of India and start associating the region with its stars/starlets.

The Dhoni ad looked silly to me and i was not impressed to be frank. And I have never once heard the superstar utter "mind it" in the way it was made up in the ad.

Amy said...

Mind it... haha, what on earth is the significance of that? Assuming there is, of course...

Amy said...

Oh, also, Maithreyi, the channel's desperate to get some viewers during the IPL. Last year they didn't do so well and this year the IPL's only going to be broadcast on digital channels, which many people still don't have.

Homer said...

12th Man,

Lets not go classing Mumbai with other Indian cities.

And Mumbai and Delhi ARE NOT the same, whatever you poor souls in the backwaters of Chennai think.

Cheers,

Maithreyi said...

12th man, The "Mind it" line was a layered reference to "Om Shanti Om" where Shah Rukh Khan and co. take a ginormously gleeful dig at Southern cinema, particularly Rajnikanth. There SRK pretends to be a Rajni-like figure and repeatedly says "Mind it" in a manner that's supposed to be mocking of '80s Rajni movies where he was more of a superman than a just a superstar.

... Yeah, that dig was insulting.

And considering the connections that Dhoni is rumoured to have with Deepika Padukone, who *also* starred in "Om Shanti Om"... yeah, apparently Pepsi does their research and meta pretty damn well.

Amy, I'm still trying to come to grips that the IPL is *broadcast* in Australia. I need to get out and get myself a life, methinks.

Homer, C'mon! I thought this North/South thing only went on in behind closed gates in schoolyards. And college campuses. And office cafeterias. And...

... Um.

Homer said...

Maithreyi,

Not the North South thing.. Just Mumbai versus the rest .. :)

Cheers,

Ankit Poddar said...

i agree with homer, let us not club mumbai with the rest, 12th Man..

may be it is the same north/south thing that you are talking about!

like the way we don't understand the non significance of 'mind it', you don't get that mumbai is as different from delhi as telugu from kannada!

Amy,

i proposed a racial war some where on your blog, din't i?! ;)

Anonymous said...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kTtZJ0NZhBc

Amy said...

Genius. Love you, anon.

Anonymous said...

http://www.facebook.com/group.php?sid=e39fb9e3f5046a460b94b2b24f144f15&gid=2217424512&ref=search