The advertising campaign for BritAsian sausage company “Mr. Singh’s Bangras” (a pun on bangers and bhangra) recently won a major award. The concept behind the ads is simple enough to describe in pictures:
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That’s right – they used edible ink to print the casing in “henna patterns” and create the first ever “branded sausage.” I’m waiting for the UK government to start printing health warnings directly on foodstuffs that are bad for your heart such as “eating this weiner will make yours a little limper.”
I really hope Daljit Singh, the company proprietor, is married already because he has just earned the enmity of every desi bride around the world. If this campaign gets widespread airplay, what do you think most people will think of when they see a chubby brown hennaed calf peeking out from underneath a red lehnga?
You can see the video version directly on the company website.
At least it’s an Indian company and not a white-owned company of I am guessing there would be flack. Did they develop this idea themselves or an ad company ?
I’m sure this may be offensive to many women as well (the whole meat analogy). Reminds me of the artist who tattoed Louis Vuitton and other brand labels onto pigs.
Is this like when they made green ketchup for kids ? Guess they’re going for the extreme novelty factor or a very unique way to brand your food.
I wonder how they taste. I’m confused and intrigued.
Is that pork casing? Cuz that would be ironic. (in my head, that would be ironic).
Oh, I think it’s tacky no matter who did it, but I’m intrigued enough by the ballsy and innovative use of technology to pattern the sausages (mmmm … sausage) that I chose not to dwell on the tackiness in this short post.
Also, it’s hard to see the links in the post given our new format (they’re in purple rather than black, but if you mouse over them you’ll see them underlined) but if you go to the linked page on the ad campaign, you’ll see the idea came from the advertising side. Then again, given the tacky way in which signifiers are thrown around in India, I’ll bet an Indian company might well have come up with the same idea.
At least they didn’t try and put little edible turbans or saris on them 🙂
Maybe this will be big with the “cannibals with Indian girl fetish” market.
why are we supposed to be hatin’ on these??? they look delicious, actually.
OMG, that’s gross!!! Ewww! Yep, I’ll be bloody pissed if anyone ever mentions sausage in case I ever get around to getting my hands henna’d.
@GurManhas
420 is getting close. I actually read that as “cannabis with indian girl fetish”
This reminds me of the intro to the movie Loins of Punjab
I didn’t find it extremely offensive. And thought it was pretty neat. But well, I may be a freak.
Gopi – I didn’t find it offensive either. We blog about plenty of subjects, only a small fraction of which are things that outrage us. We’re not one-trick ponies.
This is disgusting! 😛
My only question is
“why”
oh well. I’m a late adopter, so I probably wouldn’t get it. I just hope ms. daljit added some masale to the sausages. It’s days like these that I’m glad I’m a vegan.
don’t tell me that no one’s offended by the sexual implications! I think its all the worse that its represented by an Indian proprietor because he’s protected under the cloak of authenticity and it becomes even more difficult for his ad to be indicted for impropriety. That first picture is disgusting.
Why is sepia reporting useless shit when stuff like this:
http://www.nydailynews.com/gossip/2009/04/16/2009-04-16_everybody_loves_raymond_star_brad_garrett.html
Is happening?
Like some, I’m grossed out by the close pairing of human body parts and sausages, but like others, I’m geekily fascinated by the printing on food technology. On the other hand (sic) I would have thought that tartans would be the logical pattern to start with, followed quickly by football team colors and logos, especially for a UK company.
I would think desi brides and grooms would LOVE this ad. It’s very appropriate for suhaag raat afterall. A not-so-subliminal, subliminal message.
I’ve already thought of a reciprocal (PETA) ad where the bride gets her due for the “henna hand job” so lovingly offered to her groom.
It has to do with a tomato and a tongue…. go organic.
Our posts are just that – whatever amuses us or arouses our ire.
We addressed Garrett racist idiocy in 2 tweets and a news column item (I wrote the latter) yesterday or the day before, as soon as it hit the media. I’m pissed off as heck, but I don’t have anything more to add to the news item, so there was nothing to post about. That’s why we have the news column, for shorter items where we have nothing more to contribute.
I think most grooms (ahem) expect a bit more than a friendly handshake.
That’s just my point, desi grooms get the more (intercourse), but they rarely get it looked at, touched, fondled, or ahem, tasted.
At least that’s what the polls say.
But maybe if they developed a taste for tomatos first….
sounds like you want to get bangered by a chubby bride.
I read that as a baby cow, and couldn’t figure out what you meant by that.
chee chee DD – nobody eats cows!
you’ll have no choice when it sits on your face – bangered and mashed!
Yeah but either usage – either as part of human anatomy OR as a baby cow, this sentence;
still doesn make any sense to me.
You mean to say that if someone sees a hennaed calf, they will think of sausage and want to eat it? Or will they think that the bride will grab their sausage with her calf?
Daljit Singh might earn the enmity of all desi guys too, depending on what the size of Mr Singh’s Bangras are…..considering this report has already hurt Indian male egos.
Except for the first image… which shows this plus this equals… I think the actual idea is just of an Indian design element. Just like how graffiti has become (sadly) part of everything uber urban. And I love the photography and the print on the sausage.
As an equal oppurtunity player who has sampled the United Colors of Benetton back in the day, I can tell you that desi dudes got nothing to worry about. Size is really an individual thing. And yes, once you go black, sometimes you do end up going back…. meaning, back to someone else.
They are not all big. That’s a myth just like all Asian dudes are small.
@Dilwale Dulhaniya, did you have a large enough sample size to make your observations statistically relevant 🙂
Probably not, but I’ve discussed the issue with several other people with similar experiences and we all agreed on 2 things;
Size matters
Size is individual
Dilwale = PG
I dont get it.. scratching the head
Dilwale = OMbama = PG
?
PG is a commentator named Pardesi Gori / Pardesi Gauri who is well known to the regulars. She changes her handle, but her writing style remains the same. If you don’t know her, then don’t worry about it. She’s been banned in the past for trollery but keeps returning.
Haha. Do you just have her IP scrawled on a post-it note taped to your monitor?
No, she changes her IP regularly, which is how she can comment despite having been banned in the past. She has certain tells though, one of them is a fixation with race and penis size, so we can usually figure out who she is from her remarks.
To be fair, many people are fixated on race and penis size. Some of whom write or comment regularly on this site.
😉
And she likes “lingam”,
I mean she likes to use it.
I mean the word.
I use lingam coz it sounds less abbrassive to me than english words for the same. I never liked those ribbed Trojans.
Hey… I have to say.. those sausages sound rather tasty. If i was not a shakahari.. maybe I would try them…
And as for the henna design… I thought “cool idea!” not “oh here we go again equating women and meat”. 🙂
I mean, sometimes, a sausage with a henna design is just a sausage with a henna design, na?
I don’t think it would ever occur to me to start picturing women as sausages or sausages as women from this ad campaign. 😉
To ruthlessly change the subject to one I can consume, I had a revelation about this while buying fruit recently. Vendors often mark fruit with either stickers or markers to clue in cashiers as to which specimen the customer is buying. (e.g. one red dot = Gala organic, two red dots = Fuji conventional.) In the case of the stickers they can be gross and hard to wash off, and in the case of markers sometimes they use. . .sharpies! really gross! I’m assuming the henna really is nontoxic upon ingestion and doesn’t have any taste. So maybe they should market a little henna-labelmaker to grocers.
Very amusing piece, and even funnier comments. I know Mr Singh very well and he’s a very clever guy with an amazing product. The proof, as they say, is in the [sausage] pudding.
i think you all just need to taste mr singh’s sausage. i have, its meaty, succulent and mighty tasty.