Did you notice there is a flood of body spray ads these day. Most of them are racy and aimed purely to tickle libidinous male instincts. Though the website of Advertising Standard Council of India (ASCI) does show an increase in the complaints lodged in the last 2 years, most of the adverts are still on air after family viewing hours.
I am not being petty or whiney. But clearly the ad guys seem to have certain myths
Myth-1 Men stink ...( since most ads feature only men)
Myth-2 Women require to fragrance only their underarms
Myth-3 Women love to throw off their clothes off .. ( or sometimes themselves) for men sporting deodorants
We know that smell is an important part of attraction. Lower species have something called pheromones which signalled ‘come to me’ even from long distances. We ( ..the science people) are still not sure whether humans have that natural property to attract member of the opposite through smell. ( putting off people .. yes ) Customs showed that our ancestors did make attempts .. agarbathies were lit, rose petals were strewn on the bed during Suhaag raat. Our south Indian grandmas wore jasmine flowers to entice their men. Not sure what they did in the North...may be they didn’t require to use any olfactory stimulation since they were fair... and fairness sells even now.
Indians never used deodorant spray. It is a totally acquired habit pushed relentlessly by these innumerable deo companies. We had daily bath and applied talcum powder .... and we reached the 1.2 billion mark.
So do we now need to deodorize?
Men Stink...women sink for a deo only..the Axe effect or seduction effect..now toothpastes..gosh..humans turned to species and of lesser kind! May we continue to fall prey to it...is the hope of an advertiser! Walk into any dept store every store is stocked with deos..guess the world is jumping into making only deos..guess surely men have been effectively preyed upon! Great writing Cheers Old Monk
ReplyDeleteThank heavens we did not have deodorants in India;with agarbattis roses and jasmines we are 1.2 billion and with deos we'd ve been double of what we are now.
ReplyDeleteGeorge
I wonder how you came up with this topic :).... Is there a story behind :D.... As usual great writing. Kabba
ReplyDeleteHow true...simple yet complicated.Pinky
ReplyDeletenot all deo ads are about smelly guys and scantily clad girls throwing themselves around...you missed the one where the guy pinches off his nose (he is supposed to be a chocolate boy) and sprinkles it on ice cream cones or something.....if you ask me i find that advt disgusting and would prefer the bikini babes any day...bring the babes on...whether for its batteries or pesticide, doesn't matter
ReplyDelete@ Rambo.. yepp.. thoroughly disgusting ad .. the only ad which beats it was the one which had Imran Khan burping after drinking coke!!
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