Remember Lalitaji? A household name for the Doordarshan viewers in the 1980s, she was neither a heroine of a popular serial nor a protesting voice like Rajani. She played the leading role of an ad film where she carried a message for the consumers. She is a memorable character in the Indian advertising industry as she luminously influenced the viewers the way the professional advertising artists conceived the role of Lalitaji.

Ad films are made to publicize a product or to trigger the consumers to buy certain products and people think that an ad film model should be physically attractive to capture their mind, but Lalitaji was an exception. She represented the Indian middle class home-concerned women; her physical appearance reflected that attitude. She did not urge people to buy her product, yet she fulfilled the requirements of the advertisement. It was a 30-second short film and within this limited time span the filmmaker carried the message to the target audience with all vigour and emotional bonding.

Ad films are marketing tools combined with creative imagination and research findings to touch and influence the target groups. A successful combination is created by synchronization of ideas and beliefs of the creative people involved with the film. And above all, though this creation is a product of multi-brain effort, the message must have an accurate projection, focused perfectly. In this context we may recall the famous observation of advertisement guru Francice C Runie: “People no longer buy shoes to keep their feet warm and dry. They buy them because of the way the shoes make them feel — masculine, feminine, rugged, different, sophisticated, and glamorous, ‘in’. Buying shoes has become an emotional experience. Our business now is selling excitement rather than shoes.” Here the ‘shoe’ represents all and any kind of product. Ad films must create a tension or excitement among the viewers so that they feel attracted to the product and this excitement creation is the first challenge of an ad filmmaker.

Let us again come to Lalitaji. Her middleclass appearance was convincing in the market where she went to purchase household items. Her character and work helped the director to hit the bull’s eye with an easy throw. Filmmaker Satyajit Ray once said, if an actor fits to the character in terms of look, it makes the director’s work lot easier. The same concept is applicable to ad films too. The target audience of the ad film should feel a sense of intimacy with the main character. This concept resolves a different angle in the story and narrative pattern when a celebrity is being utilized for an ad film.

Celebrity models instantly attract the attention of audience, but unfortunately, they can’t always satisfy the audience while they are not properly supported by the narrative or the presentation pattern. A celebrity can easily create a signature for an ad film, but may fail to carry the message to the expected height. For example, people do not feel attracted to a low priced product advertised by a top star. The character must be comfortable with the emotional appeal of the product and the star must fit to the ambience of the film.

The screenplay of traditional two-hour-long feature film contains three major continuous segments — problem, crisis and end result. It is not possible to follow this pattern for an ad film though its also basically tells a story in 30 seconds. Within this time-frame the creator will have to tell their story and create among the target audience a positive liking to the message being projected. While a feature film enjoys a large time span to express its message through various turns in the development process of the theme, an ad film with a limited time-frame requires some effective elements like slice of life, life-style, fantasy, mood and images, music, technical expertise, scientific and proven information to pass on the message. In Indian perspective, the element of humour is also being considered to advertise a product.

Utpal Datta