Ad Mads - Comical Endorsements

We used to have this contest called Ad Mads at school, wherein a team of 5-6 participants would be a given a product and the team has to come up with a small advertisement skit for 5-10 minutes. Often the teams were rated highly for humor in the content and creativity than the effectiveness of product promotion.

When I saw so many blogger contests that required bloggers to directly or indirectly endorse products, somehow the idea did not appeal to me and I kind of felt readers would enjoy these kind of posts only as much as television viewers enjoy commercials. But I still wanted to give a shot at these contests. So I decided to treat them like the ad mads at school and come up with something comical that readers can enjoy and still technically meet the requirements of the contest. Who knows - if the brand folks have a sense of humor, I might even end up winning something.

Following are some of my posts of this kind:-

Technologies to beat Fuel Hikes
Here the contest itself required one to come up with outrageous ideas to save fuel. I have come up with 10 really wacky to save fuel.

Fifty Grand Worth of Apparel
This was a contest requiring blatant commercialism wherein you had to select fifty thousand rupees worth of products from a website with reasons why I would pick up the same. I found this topic so boring I decided to have some fun with this theme.

A Tryst with Death
 This was for a contest sponsored by Surf Excel stating what you would do if you could save 2 hours per day due to use of the product. I attempted a spoof on a grand scale in the classical Ad Mad style.

Cloud Black and the Seven Sardars
This was for a contest sponsored by Lakme Sun Screen. Once again I did a double spoof on product advertising as well as the old Snow White fairy Tale.

Greek v/s Geek
This was one more take for the same Lakme contest where I attempt a more caustic take in dialogue format having fun at the expense of the product branding and the contest theme.

A Brief History of Washing
This was again more a traditional Ad Mad - where I have attempted to present an exaggerated presentation of the product positioning through a tall tale.

The Great Indian Braid Hunt
This post was not for any specific product or contests. It was just my take on the various blogger contests on hair products. Here I tried a funny take on the format of the contests rather than taking on the product.

Yet Another Untold Story
I felt people were beating the old fairy tale of Rapunzel to death for contests related to hair products. So I have attempted an offbeat take on the story with a slight dig at hair product endorsements.

The Blackberry Crush Way
This post is for a contest that requires bloggers to endorse flavors of a drink. This is my attempt at lighthearted pun around the name of one of the flavors.

4 comments:

Jayashree Srivatsan said...

We used to have Ad Mads too. They were fun and yes mainly due to the humour

umashankar said...

Karthik, I love your writing as much as I hate product endorsements and the only premise that can pull me into reading such posts is the one you stick to. Trust me, no one writes them better than you. I liked the 'Cloud Black and Seven Sardar'. I remember that Baikadu thing too. Carry on, my friend!

T F Carthick said...

Seems like our school environments were very similar, Jayashree.

T F Carthick said...

Thanks Umahsankar - You have been a constant source of encouragement to me for the last 2 years.

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