Sexist? Where’s you sense of humour?

While ads on TV regularly exploit feelings of jealousy and negative emotions, ad makers say it’s all about getting the message across

As a wife dresses up and gets ready to head out, she has Dabur Honey and asks her husband how she looks, he, with a hint of jealousy, takes out her mangalsutra, adjusts it to make it visible and says, “Now you look better”. The wife then turns around and says, “Jealous husbands kitne cute lagte hain”.

Meanwhile, Alia Bhatt for a Philips hair straightener ad talks about how you can straighten your hair, look fabulous and get everyone’s attention. And when you are getting attention from the opposite sex, you are bound to make your boyfriend jealous, who will now give you attention. Both of these ads opened up to criticism about whether a woman needs to make a guy feel jealous to feel good about herself. This also makes one wonder, do we really need ads based on a negative emotion like jealousy? While Twitterattis called the ads “sexist”, ad professionals have a different angle.

Ad film director Suresh Triveni says, “An ad is always based on research insights. Years ago, when I was in the research team for an ad of a fairness brand, I asked people their opinion about the ad. While a few thought it was promoting the wrong idea, deep in a village near Meerut, a woman spoke about how it just gave her confidence. The ads primarily talk about confidence, the setting could have been right or wrong but the idea for most ads isn’t.”

The maker of the famous Mauka Mauka ads, Suresh says, “The Mauka Mauka ads weren’t appreciated by the people in Pakistan. It depends on people. And sometimes even negative publicity works. It could backfire, but the idea is to find something that cuts through the clutter. Some people could find it offensive but one can’t make a generic statement,” says Sudhir Makhija, who has been in the advertising industry for over 20 years.

Businesswoman Akshita Nawalgaria  says she found positivity in the ad. “They show that she’s a married woman yet she’s independent. She’s dressed in a modern way too. In fact, in real life I have seen many married men flaunting wedding bands. We should take these ads lightly.” Saying that there are “grey areas in advertising too”, Sudhir says, “India needs to wake up to a good sense of humour.”