A slice of life

This one's about a refreshing cool drink TV ad and the instinct of survival.

What I've liked
Summer's here and with it, the predictable round of "summer TV ads". As someone who has worked closely on a major summer product called Rasna, I am only too familiar with the angst of making yet another cool drink commercial convincing enough for the target audience to ask for it at the retail point. So when I watched Minute Maid's Pulpy Orange "Where's the pulp?' TVC, not only did I react as a professional, I was able to respond as a layman as well. The ad made the product too memorable to resist.

You must remember that cool drink advertising has been around from time immemorial. And almost every conceivable route has been explored to the limit. Slice-of-life, before use-after use; lifestyles, celebrity endorsements, characters, animated cartoons...there's almost nothing that has not been done for this product category. So when I watched a chain of people, slicing/peeling oranges in various situations only to discover that the inside was missing, the mystery was suitably intriguing to capture my imagination as well!

The story line, of course, ends with all of them discovering that the missing pulp has all gone into the making of the juice and it ends predictably with a product line, but not without leaving me quite convinced that this brand might be as close to real fruit juice more than any other. Which is why I will definitely be asking for it the next time I'm at the grocery store. Quite a credible feat for a new brand to create such a sharp impression in a market buzzing with countless offers!

What I've learned
Giants go on and on...
It is a curious fact of life. It is very difficult to stop the progress of really large entities. Be they institutions, corporations or nations, size is unstoppable. The most obvious everyday example is people. Every time a super-sized person steps into a crowd, there seems to be a silent consensus within the crowd that stepping out of his way would be a good idea.

On a more serious note, take India with her billion-strong bulk. Despite so many irregularities that drive more developed countries crazy, merely contemplating the consequences of the things that we don't do right, we still sail forward majestically, regardless of the chaos within. And I hope we will continue to progress thus, in the years to come.

Coming to institutions, I know several large advertising agencies that have withstood the whimsicalities of time regardless of the efficiency levels of the person at the helm. Efficient or inefficient, their individual contribution doesn't seem to affect the progress of the company they head. The sheer size of the company seems to absorb the good or bad impact of the person in charge. Very much like our nation. India will continue to march forward, as it has been doing over the years, despite the leadership.

On one level it is a very comforting and reassuring notion that nothing can stop us. Governments bad or good will come and go but the nation goes on forever. On the other, there is the frightening and very real possibility that continual and systematic damage to the giant, will one day stop it in its tracks. And if, god forbid, that fateful day does arise, then nothing will be able to get it going again. It will be too monumental a task for one man or one generation.

The bottom line is that though we belong to large countries or companies and our contribution to the giant's wheels of progress seems paltry, it really isn't. Every effort invested in maintaining the machine is vital towards every step it takes. It is the reason giants go on and on...

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