Every time when you switch on the TV, browse internet or flip through newspapers, you see some products being pushed onto you with some assurances. This is advertising. Advertisement is an easier, comfortable and creative mechanism of presenting an idea or concept. In other words, it is a preamble of services and goods to the public. So the sole purpose for which advertisements are usually made is to promote a product and to boost the market. And hence advertisements need to reach each and every corner of the society through print or the electronic medium and even online, if the recent times are to be taken into account.
The increasing competition among companies has made the stress on getting advertisements more and more sophisticated. They understand the need to do market segmentation and so they target their ads towards people who are more likely to buy the specific products. Every time, they try to make the ads more interesting by using humour, better images, more creativity, etc. They are placing ads in less obtrusive ways, building them into stories, associating them with activities that you do anyway. But where do these stories come from? What makes the Ad makers think? Where do they get ideas? Ad makers do not stand apart from us and thus, they are bound to extract stories from this extraordinarily complicated and rapidly moving society. Hence the stories that they make unsurprisingly represent the reality and reflect the present shape of the society.
While we are busy critiquing the negative impacts of ads in shaping our society, a bold move has been taken by Fastrack. The ad with the tagline of “Move On” reflects the youth’s choice of rebelling and breaking down all the pluralistic socio-cultural stereotypes. An ad, namely ‘come out of closet’ shows two girls, dressed for a party, coming out of their closet and adjusting their attire. The taboo that can be thought of here is homosexuality. This practice is being followed and accepted happily in many countries including ours; however, the couples — without categorizing them as ‘homo couples’ — are seen as if they are aliens or are ‘dysfunctional’ human beings. Fascinatingly, the ad besides publicizing the watches that Fastrack is known for, breaks the silence of the dining room where homosexuality has been a taboo for years. And the tagline supports it further.
Hence the ad — unlike many others — sets an example in the advertising industry. On the contrary, those who still are being accused of making stereotypical ads, unconsciously transmit the same banal messages to the changing world. They really can make a difference and build consensus besides promoting their product if they adopt the methods from companies like Fastrack which are used to make such shrewd ads. This is the time for the ad makers to guide the society to move on and make socially sensible advertisements using their creative powers.
