Commenter Angie went beyond the call of duty and scanned in this bit of whimsical pop surrealism from Cadbury:
… you’ll notice some very odd accessories in the drawing: a bbq, a duck flotation device, barnyard, and of all things a PLOW in the background. Maybe this appropriately 5 o’clock shadowed brown fellow plans on hooking up his lady to the plow later on… I don’t think he’d want to ruin his sheer silk chiffon shirt and capris with any dirty field work.
I love the musical anachronism, not that it’s a boombox but that it’s not an MP3 player. 
The two feet pressed together are a randy reference to a sexual position used to much effect by Indira Varma in Mira Nair’s soft-core raspberry, Kama Sutra.
Exploitative? Surely there’s a straight line from chocolate to eroticism. It’s much more tasteful than Raymond’s raunchy KamaSutra condom ads. Oh, yes: the conservative, Indian men’s suiting company covers everything that might pop up.
Where’s the plow? I can’t see it. Maybe you should post a close-up.
Where does this ad run?
Is it just my imagination, or do religious Hindus get less offended when the Kama Sutra is co-opted, than other Hindu texts?
Interesting find. Is that a snake in the pool?
“covers everything that might pop up” — ha ha, sly joke!
No, he’s just happy to see you.
Click the photo to, umm, enlarge.
indians come to the US for education and work, but we submit to bad american values. look at how american women dress, do you want your daughters and sisters dressing like that? A+, not T&A!
I saw the ad in a cinema…complete with cheesy sitar twangings.
From my experience, the Kama Sutra isn’t a widely read text within Hindu society. Unless by choice, of course. I mean, it isn’t something parents feel is necessary for their kids to learn in order to become good Hindu boys and girls. I did read somewhere that this text did not have a large readership even at the time it was written. It had a small following but nothing like the following dear Manu had. Because you know, “Indyans don’t like to talk about tha sax”. 🙂
Manish, you are on a roll. Please to post more images combining chocolate, kamasutra poses, pool snakes, and boom boxes. Can’t get enough.
That’s not a plow! That’s a manual lawnmower. Looks like there’s a barbecue grill back there too. The “snake” is a pool slide, and the barn is a garage. It’s a dream of dull suburbia spiced up with “exotic” chocolate, except the chocolate in question isn’t particularly exotic.
Which reminds me, the chocolate I had in Trivandrum was the nastiest stuff ever, except for this fancy boxed chocolate Cadbury (same corp that makes Caramilk) sold there. The box had the usual fruit/nut assortment plus one flavor I’ve never found anywhere else: saffron. Saffron white chocolate. Oh man it was good. That’s what an ad of this calibre should be pushing.
The cinema where? The ad must be in print too, since Angie scanned it. Is this a UK campaign?
Alright, alright, I dramatized for effect and just so I could use that gawdawful woman-plow reference! Close-enough, though…it does maintain the fields…
Neha and I are Canadian, so it may be a canuck-only ad… eh?
I smell an “insider job” on this ad – the five o’clock shadow on the male figure is way too perfect.
Bah, the five o’clock shadow is the invention of sissy-waisted Europeans. Ours is a nine o’clock shadow. Nine in the morning that is.
No doot aboot that. Saw it in Toronto. I haven’t caught it on the tube as yet.
Angie, are you in TO? There is a massive desi population here (I’ll say desi if I want to dammit, ha!) so maybe they are teshting on this side of the border first. Still, surprising that it hasn’t hit the States yet…
No, not in TO; in west, but I visit quite often. Even hit gerrard st. once in a while.
The ad is a print ad I got from a high- end Canadian Fashion magazine (FASHION). Ads for chocolate bars are really rare these days, but I have noticed a shift from targetting teenage boys to affluent women – veird. Hence the witty kama sutra reference. I personally find it more cheezy than witty, but whateva.
I’m surprised it passed the focus group stage with all the comments here, inquiring about “What’s that in the background?” LOL.
I love the boom box, too. What are they going to do “afterwards“? breakdance? I wish they were mixed tapes instead of cds!
Yeah, me too. And along with that, the marketing sublimates sexual desire/passion/satisfaction into chocolate. Half the time the first 10 seconds of a TV ad has me wondering whether I’m being asked to buy expensive sheets, spa treatments, lingerie, femenine sanitary products, a honeymoon vacation or a new erotic thriller.
Those Dove chocolate ads with the woman wearing a swirl of silk who breezes through semi-sheer curtains with an eyes-closed rapturous look on her face…?
barf.
It’s like saying “finding a man is complicated and difficult. So have some chocolate instead!!”
This ad annoys me for the same reason. And it’s upped the ante with the ‘exotic’ factor…even sexier so the chocolate must be outta this world!!
And the bad pun..”Karma” to “cara”? pleez.
It’s IS rather pretty though. Thumbs up to the artmonkey who had to draw this.
On the subject of ads, I remember several years ago Haagen-Dazs had these really cool raunchy ads that they’d only air in Europe…there was one that caused some controversy featuring a white woman and black man making out, and I think the legend said something like “Hot Fudge Sundae”
I like the bad pun.
do religious Hindus get less offended when the Kama Sutra is co-opted, than other Hindu texts?
I don’t think it’s that religiously significant. Every court scholar who decided to sit down and make his fame writing a guide does not scripture make. My sister once saw a sanskrit guide to burglary.
Bah, the five o’clock shadow is the invention of sissy-waisted Europeans. Ours is a nine o’clock shadow. Nine in the morning that is.
:-D. Ah, we love the shadow.
Yeah baby! Post-coital cuddling is for dorks!
I like the Kama Sutra (you should read it, it’s quite interesting. Not the pop-up picture version.) but I don’t like chocolate.
Manish thank you for posting up the KamaSutra condoms link. I remember that picture from when I were a wee lad and I think the girl’s as phenomenal now as I did then. I don’t suppose anyone knows who she is? I think many of their other pics were drawings.
I note KamaSutra now have the KamaSutra SPORT range of rubbers. What DO the kids get up to these days?!
Where can I get all the wallpapers or pictures of Kamasutra condom ads? I find them very exciting..