My Review:- "P.K."

"Who is PK?" Is he 'Pawan Kapoor', is he 'Parvez Khan' or is he 'Peter Kurian' ?? This BIG question has been dwelling in the minds of all Aamir Khan fans and Hindi movie geeks since this first poster of PK(naked Aamir with a transistor) launched. 
So, here's the answer-- He is none of these names I mentioned above. He is just a cute 'outsider' researching on human values, culture and tradition with his Bhojpuri dialect, peeping ears, big-green eyes and colourful-weird clothes. In his journey, he comes across people of different religions and some eye-opening instances. His goal is to contact with the real 'GOD' and disconnect all the 'wrong numbers' which come in between.
It is said that it's Aamir Khan's experimentation which delivers masterpieces one after the other. It is said that in Rajkumar Hirani's films, the director is the 'real hero' and both these notions are hence proved with PK.
The songs are purely situational but 'Love is a Bhaste of time' will come along u outside the theatre. You may find similarities with Akshay Kumar and Paresh Rawal's "Oh My God" in it but there are a lot more entertaining n funny sequences/dialogues. Anushka Sharma, Sushant Singh Rajput, Saurabh Shukla, Boman Irani, do justify their characters and Sanjay Dutt apart from his role is just a bliss with his moves in 'Tharki Chhokro'. In PK's language- इस फिलम को टुकुर-टुकुर देख लेना वरना तोहार 'लोलवा' हो जाइ..!!

Ad Review: "Vodafone M-Pesa"

Ad Name: Vodafone M-Pesa (click on the name to watch the ad)
Brand: Vodafone
Agency: Ogilvy India

About: A young guy, with helmet in one hand and an out-of-order scooter besides him on a raw way of a small town, calls his elder brother who works in 'Dilli' and asks how is the weather there. The elder brother quickly guesses that his brother has done something wrong and he is in need of money because the younger one called him only either when he wanted money or when he did something troublesome. On being asked what has he done, the younger brother makes silly excuses that he took Daddy ji's scooter for a ride but a tree came in between. He emotionally asks for some money from the elder brother promising that he would return it soon. The 'Dilliwala' brother gets soft-hearted and hands over the money to him on a condition that the younger one would never ask for the weather again. Now as the money is received, the younger one gets over the elder brother and says that if he had bought him a motorcycle, this wouldn't have happened. The elder brother in anger tells him to hang up the phone.

Relevance: The ad implies that the consumer of M-Pesa works away from home in big cities and sends money to remote places across the country. But, sending money in the conventional way can be a very slow process or even unreliable. Here comes the product's benefit that handing over money is as good as handing it over oneself. Usually we call our relatives/friends when they are at a distance from us. But in the ad, both the brothers are shown standing at one place which conveys that transfer of money through M-Pesa is as quick, safe and convenient as transferring it personally from one person to another.

Recollection Factor: The ad strikes a chord with viewers from all age groups. The elderly can be convinced by showing the application as a new form of money order. Parents can be educated that they can instantly transfer money to their children staying in hostels. Professionals can be educated that this is the easiest way of transferring money to their parents who are staying in another city. A minor percentage of the population has started using this service. The market potential is much bigger.

My Rating: 4 stars :) 

Ad Review: "Bharat Matrimony"

Ad Name: Bharat Matrimony Happy Marriage

Brand: Bharat Matrimony

Agency: Lowe Lintas & Partners

About: Eating together with their son on the dinner table, the parents ask him about why the daughter-in-law hadn't turned up from office. The son says that she might be having some important work as it doesn't happen daily. The father, though hesitantly, again asks his son what was the need of her job when the salary of his son was enough. Next shot establishes the daughter-in-law entering the house but on listening what her father-in-law was questioning to her husband, she quietly decides to listen to the conversation without stepping in. The son replies gently to his father, "Even after your retirement, you go to the college for giving lectures, why? Because you like doing it. In the same way, my wife does a job not for earning money, but because she likes doing it." The strong statement of her husband, in support of her, gives a sense of pride and smile on the face of the wife. She finally enters the room and the husband is shown serving food to her. Another shot shows a black and white screen, taking to flash back which establishes that the girl had filled the Bharat Matrimony form on the website with a detail that she would like to work even after marriage.

Relevance: The ad shows why bharatmatrimony.com is the Most Trusted Matrimony Brand (According to the Brand Trust Report, 2014). Bharat Matrimony with Lowe Lintas has done a brilliant job in hitting the issue of women who aspire to work even after marriage. The ad focuses on the thing that needs to be highlighted that happy marriages are not a matter of chance but a matter of choice. In India, we many a times come across such cases when the girl who worked before her marriage, was forced to sit back at home and was imposed the tag of 'house wife'. The ad is an eye-opener for all such families who didn't let their daughter-in-laws work. 

Recollection factor: The tagline 'Find someone who cares for what you love' is perfectly depicted in this ad. The strong supportive statement the husband gives brings smile to the face of every female viewer and makes the male viewers learn what actually their wives want from them. Care, support and lots of love.

This advertisement has already won a lot of awards and acclaim. No doubt it will be remembered for a great period of time.

My Rating: Full 5 stars.

(P.S.- click on the Ad Name to watch the ad)   

Ad Review: 'Google search'

• Ad name: Google Search REUNION
• Brand: Google
• Agency: Ogilvy India
• About: Baldev is an elderly Hindu man in Delhi, India and Yusuf is an elderly Muslim man in Lahore, Pakistan. One day Baldev shows his grand-daughter Suman an old, dated photograph of two children. He tells her that it is himself and his best friend Yusuf when they lived in Lahore prior to the partition of India in 1947. In front of his house there was a park with a gate made in the stone age and each evening he and Yusuf would fly kites there and steal "Jhajhariya" from Yusuf's family sweet shop. After partition, the two friends got separated. Many decades later, Baldev still thinks of Yusuf and misses him. Using details of her grandfather's story, Suman is able to locate Yusuf's sweet shop in Lahore via Google. She connects with his grandson who helps her to plan a surprise visit from Yusuf on Baldev's birthday. 
• Relevance: The ad shows how this magic named Google has become the part and parcel of our lives. For getting information about weather, flight details, addresses, recipes and almost everything, we use Google on laptops, desktops and now on smartphones and portable devices. But this ad depicts, how Google can be used in a greater sense. Connecting two friends, two communities and two countries at large. Not many advertisements leave you with goosebumps! 
• Recollection factor: The length of this ad is long but while viewing it, one does not feel that it is dragging. It touches the emotional chord and almost gives tears at the end when Baldev and Yusuf meet. It shows that still there is a strong and deep connection between the so called 'arch-rivals' INDO-PAK and it depicts the same very sensitively. The ad was released in December and very soon reached over a million views on youtube. Most importantly it was loved by both the Indians and the Pakistanis. It became popular on facebook too and many people shared it. The 'Aman ki Asha' campaign could not achieve such praise whereas Ogilvy India has created a marvel once again and proved their worth. This ad will be remembered by today's 'gadget-freak' generation for a long time. 
• My Rating: full 5 stars for this ad.

My New Year Resolution!

Its a new year, 2014!! Well already a month has passed. The previous year was really good because of many reasons but the most important one was that I stepped into my post-grad life which would be making my career, my profession. The one which I have dreamed of. The one which I have also written everywhere on the social websites. My aspiration of being an advertising professional.

So, one day I asked myself in self-realization, that what extra am I doing to become one of those, besides pursuing an Ad. & P.R. course and doing internships in the agency offices? Knowing that GOOGLE has answers to all our questions, I typed "ADVERTISING INDUSTRY" in the search box. I know that all the important results that GOOGLE gives are on the first page itself. But that day I clicked on the next page as my satisfaction level did not achieve a break-even point from the first page results like 'wikipedia' or some crap slideshows or PDFs which we generally use to copy-paste in our project assignments. Something unusual happened and I got my answer from the second page. 'Ad critique' was written in one of the results and a link to a blog was given. On opening it, I found that the last blog that person has written was 5 years back in 2009 and he was not an Indian that I could find from the peregrine ads which he had reviewed in his blog. 

Thanks to that blog, I got my answer. Someone would reckon it as cheating but no! I just got the idea of making an 'Indian remake' of that blog. Haha! Jokes apart,  I got an idea that I should lessen reviewing movies and increase reviewing advertisements. This would, in turn, help me in building my portfolio. So one can call this as my new year resolution but yes I will be reviewing different ads now on my blog.

I got my answer from GOOGLE. Thus my first ad review will be of GOOGLE as well. Coming soon... :)