If you have been visiting this site, you must have read the ad reviews that I keep writing from time to time. Last week, Thump asked me to post some of these reviews up for them.

My first ad review is now up on thump. I review the Volkswagen Jetta ad doing the rounds these days.

Check out the review here, and be generous with your comments

In the second ad review, I take a look at the HCL ad that has been on air for a while. HCL technologies is a software outsourcing company in the vast Indian IT space. Take a look at the ad first, before proceeding to read the review.

Now this ad portrays software professionals in very bad light. Being a part of the fraternity, I can certainly say that software engineers are not the self-loving baboons that this ad shows them as. The overall temerity of the ad is taken to new heights at the end when there is an HCL branded chopper waiting to take the guy abroad!! If there was a chopper to pick up the guy, why did he need a ride to get to it in the first place? The ad makers probably thought the best way to highlight HCL’s work and achievements was to put an overconfident & preachy developer with an investment banker to ride to a helicopter. What were they thinking??

Relevance: * & 1/2
The question to ask here is, what is this ad relevant to? It fails to show HCLs technical prowess, it totally fails to establish its credentials as an employer in the IT industry & it confuses the viewers. I fail to find this ad being relevant in any space that an IT company might seek to target.

Acceptance: *
The IT community most certainly has not taken this ad very well. And I do not see why a potential HCL client would be attracted towards it by looking at this ad. There is little realism in this ad, made worse by the helicopter at the end (I am sure HCL employees don’t get any helicopter rides to “go overseas for a life sciences project”. Totally unacceptable.

Freshness: *
There is nothing really fresh about this ad. A lot of creative liberties could have been taken to highlight the technological prowess of a company, but this is really a plain jane ad. Boring & monotonous all the way through.

Nonsense Factor: ****
This is the only parameter this ad scores very highly on. The amount of nonsense dished out is magnificent. And it is bad nonsense, that drives a viewer up the wall. Most of the nonsense comes out of the passenger seat of the car, actually all of it comes from there. The final nail in the coffin is the helicopter. What I cannot understand is, if HCL can send a chopper to pick the guy up, why not give him a HCL taxi too to take him to the chopper. And make the whole ad a monologue, with the engineer babbling on to himself. Pathetic.

Recollection Factor: *
It is difficult to say if this ad is easy to remember. The amount of nonsense served can actually make you remember the ad very well, though for all the wrong reasons. I’d rather advise you to not remember this ad, it is poorly conceived and the execution is pathetic and cheap.

The final verdict for this ad? Poor, pathetic, pretentious, smug & in bad taste. Such an ad will do a huge damage to HCL’s image. If you don’t believe me, look at all the comments this ad gets on you tube here.

If I were HCL, I’d ask for my money back from the ad agency.

Do let me know your opinions on this ad, and which ad would you want reviewed next.

Finally I find time to write, after a few weeks of back breaking work. And I am glad to introduce a new review series, where I will be reviewing the various advertisements that rule the Indian telly.

Earlier on this blog, I had started a review series on blogs, called Breview, that went along for a few posts, after which it suffered a premature closure owing primarily to my being distracted with a lot of other things. Bringing Breview back is a tough ask, but if you want me to breview your blog or a friends’, do let me know.

Now, on this new Ad-review. I will be reviewing ads based on the following parameters:

1. Relevance: How relevant is the advertisement to the product that it is trying to sell?
2. Acceptance: How well accepted/understood is the ad in the Indian context? This because there are several global firms that use their international ads in India without much of a context change. So, is the ad accepted?
3. Freshness: How fresh is the ad? Is it a use of the same old boring concepts that were always used to market that category of product, or is it something totally new?
4. Nonsense factor: Does the ad have a lot of nonsense in it? And does the nonsense in the ad make any sense after all?
5. Recollection factor: Do the audience watching the ad remember it when they go to buy a product? Or rather, will the audience buy a product based on this ad?

Based on these factors, and a lot of coherent rambling as always, I will be reviewing a lot of ads in the coming days. So watch this space, and do comment to tell me which ad goes under the scanner next, along with your views on the ads reviewed.

Watch this space for more….