When advertising created celebrities

Airtel 4G girl Sasha Chhetri is a better-known face across India than most Bollywood starlets

It must have been 1978, or thereabouts, when Promise toothpaste was launched. The young, dimpled, middle-class housewife in the ad would ask in mock exasperation, Offo! Ek aur naya toothpaste?.. That simple question mouthed with a bemused and somewhat irritated facial expression soon made both the brand and its protagonist wildly famous. While Promise zoomed to the no. 2 position after market leader Colgate, the lady in the ad became known to the world as Maya Alagh, coincidentally herself a dentist by profession. The Promise ad launched Maya as a television actress of repute who went on to also grab