Incredibly off-k!lter

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Last night I saw an odd Indian tourism billboard in Times Square. It read, ‘Get to know yoga from its mother,’ and the visual style reminded me of old-skool ‘An Ideal Boy‘ posters.

The blurb in an advertising publication says the ads aim for kitsch, but IMO they fall into the chasm between kitsch and cheese. The colors say ‘An Ideal Boy,’ the visual style is fun. But the elements don’t work together. The slogan is lame, its font evokes Dances With Wolves, and the tagline in ultra-serious Bodoni strip it of wit. Indian tourism needs to hire whoever’s penning the witty Citi ‘Live richly’ campaign. I hear Rushdie’s available.

Even the campaign description is off:

Prathap Suthan, national creative director, Grey Worldwide, explains why this campaign stands out: “The difference lies in the expression which, according to me, is very Indian. Where one normally uses photography for billboards, which is a Western expression, the style used to communicate in this ad is the kitsch look… Opting for the kitsch look is based on everyday observations from all over India. These images have been drawn from village folk art and common imagery seen across India, images that bring to mind the colours, uniqueness and diversity of India.” [Link]

Kitsch, like cool, shrivels in sunlight. Trying to explain it kills it. Reading about it in dorky ad pubs kills it. Nonchalant, off-radar irony is the point. Calling it ‘the kitsch look’ voids any street cred. It’s painful even to read. I’ve lost all my Williamsburg karma by writing this paragraph.

Chantal, book me for a fauxhawk. The three hundred dollar kind. Tell them I want highlights, I’m feeling verklempt.

There are three other ads in the series, and each has the same problem, nice art with lame slogans that just don’t translate well. It’s like ads and manuals for Japanese autos in the ’70s before they started using American copywriters:

… there are four billboards at Times Square… the Mecca for global outdoor, and gigantic hoardings and display wraps at Cromwell Road in London and at the Charles de Gaulle airport in Paris. The other outdoor initiatives were through display panels on city buses in London and a huge LED display panel at Montparnasse Square in Paris. The entire media spend on the outdoor is estimated to be in the vicinity of Rs 5 crore across the three cities. Later, the campaigns were also taken to Zurich and Davos for a week during the World Economic Forum (WEF). [Link]

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The visual style reminds me of:

Related post: Incredible advert!sing

28 thoughts on “Incredibly off-k!lter”

  2. i like the look of the posters but agree about the slogans. could have been much better and the font used makes it hard to distinguish the slogans from the Incredible India. on the upside, i’m glad they’re finally taking the trouble to reconnect yoga to india in the minds of people and to reestablish its ancient provenance (before it is patented – already happening).

  3. i also think mr. suthan incorrectly applies the word “kitsch” to village folk art, and it is a too broad and slightly demeaning brushstroke to describe the “colours, uniqueness and diversity of India.”

  4. Frankly, I’m a bit disturbed by the “Go back to 3000 B.C…” advert (and, to a lessor extent, the “21st century stress” one). I know that the date is meant to refer to the antiquity of yoga practices, but coupled with an exhortation to visit India, it seems to reinforce the whole ‘modern, progressive West’ versus ‘India, land of ancient, unchanging tradition’ Orientalist thematic.

  5. Incredible India! Where all the people are WHITE (and the tourists, too!) But we still have separate rates for you ‘Amreeka toorist’!! So bring on ur dollars and get discriminated, ’tis indeed incredible!!!

  6. i think these ads are targetted at the yoga enthusiast crowd, many of whom go to India for what they hope is more “authentic” practice than the increasingly common yoga booty classes being offered in the u.s. these are probably aimed at those who go the sivananda ashrams and the like in the west, who are moderately serious to serious practioners. yoga and ayurveda tourism is an increasingly big earner for india and the people who take these trips aren’t really looking for the “progressive, modern” india. they are trying to escape that back home. i think if these were ads aimed at encouraging business investment, then yes, make it more about the progressive, modern here and now. noone i’ve ever met who went to india on vacation went there for the “progressive, urban, modern” experience. they went to find something they couldn’t find at home.

  8. And what does the ‘ideal girl’ do?

    Wakes up earlier then everyone else Brushes teeth into a crest fresh smile Showers with freshly squeezed lemon juice, bsean flour and haldi Prays for the family and a future husband Makes Parathas and Chai for breakfast etc etc?

    Anyone know if there is a poster for the female folk?

  11. Big oooops….I totally forgot that the video as was discussed earlier at SM. In fact I should have noticed the link at the bottom of the post before jumping the gun !forgot that the

  13. I highly recommend some of the ecotourism options for one. I had the greatest time in Kerala couple of months ago, camping in the Periyar Tiger Reserve as part of a local ecotourism initiative.

  14. God, to think that I actually took that ‘ideal boy’ crap seriously for a vast portion of my life. Eeeeeek!

  15. Yeah what does the ideal girl do?

    Gets the highest grades possible in school and college so that she can get a good future husband. Learns how to cook, clean, and sew, and as soon as she graduates, is married off to a doctor of her parents’ choice (who she has met only once before, during the formal “introduction meeting” between the families, fully-chaperoned).

  16. Incredible India! Where all the people are WHITE (and the tourists, too!)

    Yeah, neither the ads nor the ‘ideal boy’ posters come close to representing the skintone of the vast majority of Indians. I guess this is the chromatically sanitized version of India for export. No wish to create any subconscious linkages in the minds of Western ad-viewers re: brown people (= terrorism) = India, maybe?

  17. ‘kitsch’ is so misused in this context…in fact its misused in most contexts…someone should refer the creative director guy to milan kundera in the unbearable lightness of being, where he once and for all puts an end to the fallacies about common usage of ‘kitsch’ 🙂

  20. Do Indian women really practice yoga in saris like that?

    Better question, do ideal Indian boys really have to wear those shorts when they took a shower? I was really misinformed…

  21. Heh Heh, I just went to the Indian Medical Tourism expo link from the Incredible India website. I just luuuurve the fact that they have a white, blonde, blue-eyed chick being the “consulting doctor” for international patients. Check out the lower left of the page.

  22. Ideal boy..wisdom for the ages ..you cannot go wrong with field hockey, NCC and “saluting” parents..ROTFL…

  23. “… The difference lies in the expression which, according to me, is very Indian… Where one uses photography for billboards, which is a Western expression, the style used to communicate in this ad is the kitsch look… Opting for the kitsch look is based on everyday observations… common imagery… colours, uniqueness and diversity of India.”

    Funny how the ad-firm denounces photography as Western and then ties “kitsch” to “Indian-ness”–only an outsider, perhaps only a “Westerner,” would regard everyday, common forms of Indian expression as kitschy.

    Grey Worldwide is fairly well-known and well-respected, but when it comes to India, well, let it suffice to say they’re the ones who gave us killer bees.

  28. do people here know about the AMUL advertisements? Over the years, they have had some brilliant billboards. You can check them out here