Now lip locking is a think of past and veterans like Mallika Sherawat walking the red-carpet in cannes, it was time now for advertisement world to emulate films.
In the season of love ’Monsoon’ when driving is seen as an ’in’ thing, especially driving through puddles, and what better than your girl friend/wife (or both) accompanying you at the front seat.
And when the target audience is the young generation and in todays nuclear age when joint family was last heard some decade ago, and couple car is being endrosed as the most hip and happening thing, small car manufacturers are ceasing this opportunity to lure young professionals.
However, two recent ads by car manufacturers Hyundai (Santro) and Maruti (Alto) had me thinking. Why? Because both played up love narratives; you know, a couple viewed up close and personal, much in the manner of Bollywood popular fare. And yet, amidst the apparent similarity, and, might I add, rather familiar storyline, something special in the difference between them caught my attention.
First, a brief run through the two ads. The Santro ad piggy backs a tried and tested ad strategy; take up a core idea and then create situations around that idea, using it, in a sense, as the controlling motif for the various sequences of the ad; in this case the idea is ’’your first ...’’. The ad runs in slow-mo, beautifully mimicking the passage of time, and captures moments such as ’your first love’, ’your first fight’, ’your first child’ and so on.
All this is achieved through visuals revolving around a couple and their Santro; very traditional, very filmy, and very effective. The tone in this ad feeds on middle class, soap nurtured consciousness. The point to note here is that Santro is suggested as your first car; India has progressed, has it not, since it seems a Maruti 800 is an upgrade from a wheeler (a somewhat distinct category from the type for whom the first vehicle is straightaway a car!).
The Alto ad, one might presume, is making a similar pitch, since it too targets a young couple. And yet, this couple is somewhat racier than the Santro couple. If the Santro ad captures ’make-belief’ cinema, the Alto ad is cut more in the ilk of ’real’ movies that are of late making it to cineplexes!
Aesthetically, the ad is yards ahead of the Santro spot. The quality of the visuals, the Shubha Mudgal background score (woven around rain), the locale (possibly Nilgiris; definitely rain-soaked South India), and of course the cleverness of the execution are marvellous.
A spunky young woman serves a bunch of car keys to her partner for his morning cuppa; she’d rather have him take a drive to catch the playful rain that’s drenching the verdure outdoors; she’s playful (just as the drops of rain are, the background score suggests) and mischievous, and she epitomises spontaneity; she’s very much a ’Let’s Go’ kind of person.
The character of the female lead in the ad lends it the sort of spunk the Santro ad is unable to evoke. Maybe Hyundai is following a different brief, and possibly the Santro is a more popular car, but the ’Let’s Go’ concept has the Alto going places, if not on the road, then at least on television screens.
So what next....?
Advertising scene a few years later may show young couple making love in those tiny-miny cars at highways....with a tag-line...SANTRO XXX----A CAR FOR EVERY REASON AND EVERY SEASON