Ad Nauseam : Part - VIII

When I was young and callow and just making my way in the fungus-filled ravines of the Indian ad industry, there was a client of ours in the erstwhile HMM (now GSK) named Pran Choudhury, but known to all as the legendary PKC.

At one of our meetings he used the phrase "the operation was successful but the patient died", which sounded like the ultimate oxymoron and was allowed to pass into history with the usual appreciative sounds that an agency makes to any client even when he's talking codswallop.

But he was a canny old codger, was PKC (alas, no longer with us but perhaps in the great Horlicks factory in the sky and terrorising all the angels), because the wisdom of that pronouncement came home to me in spades during the recent Asia Cup in Bangladesh.

The ephiphanic moment came when Master Tendulkar scored that 100th century and everyone went ballistic, not least the media and his sponsors, who out-shouted each other to prove that he was holier than the next.

No, it wasn't that bit of history that was the epiphany: it was the deafening silence from all the above (including the usually balanced and eminently readable Harsha Bhogle) about the other thing: India lost the match.

India lost the match

Worth the caps, I assure you, because the Indian team went there not for that century, but to participate in a tournament at which they were the defending champions. And because of that defeat, India was knocked out of the tournament.

Now, let's do some chapter and verse:

1) It was Master T's second slowest ODI century (out of the 49 he's now scored). Scored at a strike rate (if that's the mot juste) of just above 72, and his 114 came off 147 balls, thus meaning he wasted 33 deliveries or five-and-a-half overs. India finally eached 290, but lost to a rampant Bangladesh in the 49th over, which puts those 33 dot deliveries into (a depressing) context.

2) He played out a maiden over (I think it was the 41st) when India was around 200 for 2 (so not hurting), but he hadn't reached his 100.

3) Now, surely you will ask (or if you don't, you should), was this in a game where the ball was swinging around? Or seaming off a green track at 150 k's an hour? Or that India was reeling at 20 for 5 and needed someone to stay till the end? And the sad answer is no, no, no. it was a placid track against the world's number 8 ODI team.

4) So what has this tirade to do with Advertising and Marketing (and dear old Afaqs)? Everything, me lads. Because A & M doesn't exist in a vacuum and is closely related to culture, this sorry episode casts a bit of light (or shade?) on our characteristics as people and thus lends to the insights that bedevil most of our advertising.

The first is the obsession with self.

I, me and myself could be the anthem for the Indian of today, and it's no surprise that most of our advertising and popular iconography extols the virtues of the individual over the collective.

This explains our obsession with cricket which in truth is actually an individual sport cunningly disguised as a team game. Why is India, with the second largest population in the world, ranked about 130th in the FIFA rankings when soccer is actually a much easier (logistically and economically) game to play? Precisely because the individual is subordinated throughout the game by the necessity of playing with and contributing to the group. So the star is 90 per cent of the ad, not the brand and certainly not the consumer.

The second is blind adulation or veneration. As I write, I see Mr AK Anthony sidling up to and genuflecting before a discredited M Karunanidhi (routed in the polls) and Ms Kanimozhi, who's been in jail for the spectrum scam, completely nonchalant and taking it as their due; as indeed we've seen Kalmadi enjoying fashion shows after his sojourn in jail for the CWG scam. In any other (or most) countries, people like these would have been discredited and shunted to the backwaters of non-entityism: in India, because they are 'somebody' (the ubiquitous VIPs), they are welcomed back in the public domain almost as if nothing had happened. As for Master T, since when does a player for a national team decide when he should retire? Why is he superior to the other ten men? That's a potent example of self above all. Even our MPs can be voted out after 5 years!! (So AB endorses from Gujarat Tourism and Lal Tail and most things in between. Is there no other reason why one should buy a brand but for the fact you can look at the lions while getting an oil massage? Sad!)

The third is the complete lack of accountability of the average Indian official and the overall Indian system. In the public sphere, you are paid whether you deliver or not. You are never terminated from your job. Why do you think most Indians strive for a 'grrment" job? (I've covered this in my previous bit of whimsy on Afaqs. Rush and read it).

So self before team, blind adulation (I can just see all our hard-working MP's rushing for autographs which they no doubt use as screen savers) and lack of accountability: quick cut, zoom out and pan across the layers of Indian advertising and you will see much the same qualities (if I can call them that) emblazoned across our commercial media.

How sad that a good player also reflects the underside of the stone.

Perhaps it is indeed fitting he is now an MP.

Just completes the circle.

PKC, the patient's comatose right now and the chances of survival are bleak.