It's a mad, bad, sad, glad ad world!

INDEPENDENCE SPECIAL/ BRANDS AND MARKETING

It was never too difficult to sell to us, was it?

Sud's up: Sunday mornings. The moment you heard the Nirma jingle blare from hundreds of TV sets in your neighbourhood, you knew it was time for Mahabharat to begin. The Nirma commercial may have been crude, but it was as effective as a sledgehammer. Listen to it, it's playing in your brain right now!

At the other cerebral extreme was Surf's Lalitaji, who could sell you a not-so-cheap detergent while buying tomatoes. To paraphrase David Ogilvy, the consumer is not a moron, she's Lalitaji.

At the other end was the Ariel commercial. After observing 14,000 bathrooms across the country, Procter & Gamble came to the conclusion that to sell an expensive, high-tech detergent, you had to go through the mindset of the daughter-in-law who could tell her doubting mother-in-law that you need not beat the life out of clothes any more.

Starry, starry types: A rough-and-ready Kapil Dev saying "Palmolive da jawaab nahin" accompanied by a toothy grin, a rugged Dharmendra's laconic announcement for the equally rugged Rajdoot motorcycles, a youthful Jeetendra jumping out of an aircraft for 30+ capsules, a dignified Shekhar Kapur marching ahead with Digjam suiting and a cheeky Sunil Gavaskar "taking the world in his stride" with Dinesh suiting.

Unlike today's personalities who peddle stuff they wouldn't be seen dead with and vice versa, it was memorable and effective. Quiz time: Which brand of office equipment does Tendulkar endorse? And Big B peddles hair oil from Emami or Baidyanath or Dabur? Psst! We don't know either.

Soap operas: On the other hand, you have Lux "" still starry after all these years. While the stars were in their bathtubs, one bold TV commercial took an effervescent Karen Lunel out in the open. From the bathroom to the waterfall, from coy neck shots to an itsy-bitsy bikini, from a gentle voice-over to a racy jingle, the Liril commercial went where no soap ad had gone before.

Jingle bells: Going back a bit, you had a device called the radio. People religiously tuned to Vividh Bharati and Radio Ceylon. Binaca had its Geetmala, while Bournvita concentrated on "Man ki Shakti" by sponsoring a superb quiz contest.

When we moved from radio to TV, some part of the previous medium stuck "" the jingle. In old TV ads, they were really strong on soundtracks: Bajaj Lighting, Maggi 2-Minute Noodles, Glucon-D, Limca, Vicco Vajradanti, Thums Up...the list is endless.

Patriot games: Sometime in the 1990s, it was great to be an Indian. Well, the idiot box told you so. The exquisitely shot "Mile Sur Mera Tumhara" may not have been a commercial but it did sell the concept of One India.

Then you had the brilliant "Hamara Bajaj" campaign with its slice-of-Indian-life "" that it couldn't stop the downhill ride of the scooter category is another thing. In the same vein was Tisco's "We Also Make Steel", VIP luggage's tear-jerking "Kal Bhi, Aaj Bhi, Kal Bhi", and of course, the monster hit Cadbury's Dairy Milk ad, "Kya Swaad Hai Zindagi".

Whose line is it anyway?: Made For Each Other. Whenever You See Colour, Think Of Us. Happy Days Are Here Again. Utterly, Butterly Delicious. The Complete Man. Give Me Red.

Iconoclastic: Some of them are still around: the Onida Devil, the Air India Maharaja, the Parle-G girl, Fido Dido. But most of them have sadly gone: Asian Paints' Gattu, the bearded Zodiac Man, the Elpar cowboy, the Promise "Off-Oh" housewife, the Kelvinator penguin, the Murphy baby, the "I Love You Rasna" girl, the left-handed Vicks "khich-khich" girl... The memories remain.