Radios And Advertisements

I have been addicted to radio since I was in my early teens. I always had a radio which would be playing songs in the background while I went about whatever I was doing.

I show strong loyalty. I pick one radio channel that plays my favorite programs and I stick to the channel. 

Today I found that I surfed radio channels (stations) meaning I changed the channel to some other station because the advertisements in the channel were getting to be too much to bear (hear).

I have a strong dislike for advertisements (http://vbala99.blogspot.com/2011/03/free-market.html, http://vbala99.blogspot.com/2011/01/advertisements-promises.html). There are three kinds of advertisements in my world.

• Advertisements that I like listening to or watching. There would be very very few advts that fall in this category.
• Those that I tolerate. This would be a fairly large number. These are advertisements that I neither like nor hate.
• Those that I hate. In terms of numbers this would fall between those of the above two categories.

When it comes to the last category above (the ones that I really dislike) I am reminded of two advertisements each of which causes a distinct distaste .

One is a jewelry advertisement which shows Adah and Madhavan sitting on a sofa. The lady is very upset, Madhavan gives her something. She is still pouting as she opens the box. Then on seeing the jewelry inside her face lits up in a 1000 watt smile. This advt brings out in all 1000 watt clarity the avarice of a woman, the craving for expensive things. It highlights the cheapness in a person's character. Though of course this is not what the advertisement wants to highlight!!

The other ad shows 2 boys trying to chat using a phone, one using an "ordinary" phone which is a pain to type on while the other boy expertly chatting on a Nokia phone probably indicating a nicer interface. Now the 2nd boy's face, as he gleefully types on the phone, is sickening to me. What was man created for? To consume the best things in life? Is this what we want to communicate?

Should advertisements only inculcate an ardor to consume?

I like to think of advertisements as a communication to announce a new product or service in the market. A communication that specifies what the new thing is all about and gives factual information. I expect the tone of the advertisement to be not much different from what would be the case if you were talking about an equivalent but competing product.