TVC: Honda Mobilio feat Kapil Sharma
By Malay Desai By: Mash Up and Blazar, GroupM India Indian television’s comedian Kapil Sharma plays a car salesman in the first instalment of a reported web series for Honda Mobilio, a seven-seater car. Taking his flirtatious image further, he is shown staring at a girl mouthing car-related puns when his boss catches him. After a verbal duel, he watches a young woman walk in the showroom, her mother in tow on the phone. The mother is discussing a potential groom for her when Sharma initiates a dual sales pitch of both the car and himself as a candidate. The spot winds up with the lady choosing ‘the car’ and the boss left surprised, followed by a mention of Honda’s India site. Do we like ? There are two ways to look at this commercial - ‘Wow, look who Honda India managed to get for their ad!’ and ‘Wait, so Kapil managed to get Honda India for his ad debut?’ If you felt the former, you probably enjoyed this ad and probably laugh your lungs out every weekend during ‘Comedy Nights With Kapil.’ If the latter, well, our sympathies lie with you, more so if you are a Honda owner. It’s true, the 68-year-old automobile legend from Japan, one whose models command a premium even at second or third owner re-sales, has chosen Kapil Sharma, Indian television’s biggest face from the past many months. We hear there are more such adventures of Kapil in store for the car’s launch early July, but have already tuned out thanks to this two-and-a-half-minute forced extravagance. Sharma’s North Indian style dialogue-baazi is entertaining indeed, but if you are in the minority of Indians who like witty, dry humour, he could get annoying very quickly. Moreover, Comedy Nights stops being funny within the first 10 minutes of its two hour duration for the same reason. This spot too, which borrows Kapil’s ‘perennial flirt’, ‘hitting on anything that moves’ personality makes you cut a straight face throughout its duration. It has a script though, and it’s filled with zero originalities, for instance the ‘aur batao’ question to which Kapil responds with a personal problem and the core idea of comparing a car’s features to that of a life partner’s, which has been done by dozens of radio spots so far. Perhaps the only funny bit is the ‘Kapoor ka launda ya apna Honda?’ question, which many snooty Honda owners might find too crass. After all, here’s the company which gave us the memorable ‘Cog’ commercial and many others for Civic and CR-V featuring impossible dreams and thrilling action. It may not be the agency’s or the client’s fault, and Sharma has obviously chosen the finest brand to make his commercial debut with (among offers from sabun and razor brands we assume). But if you find this ad too ‘sasta’, remember a wealthy farmer near your city is already thinking of buying this Mobilio. To watch this film, feed this easy link –‘bit.ly/June30ad’ SOCIAL NEWSFEED The social web’s tyranny on Suarez When Zinedine Zidane headbutted an opponent in the 2006 World Cup final, Facebook was many times smaller than it is today and Twitter was still an idea in Jack Dorsey’s head. Today when Uruguayan Luis Suarez has bitten an Italian opponent in an equivalent act of insanity, the social web has grown exponentially than before and there is no looking back in his trial by socia l media. As we write, there is already a Pacman like game, a few hundred memes and a Twitter trend that refuses to die. Moreover, several brands, mostly food brands such as McDonald’s in his home country, Trident and Snickers have made their hay in the sun , taking digs at the now banned footballer . The most entertaining and perhaps the least lasting trend would be ‘Suarezing’ i.e. people posing for pictures like they’re being bitten . Can’t help but say ‘poor guy Luis. ’ Italy Football Team likes this Brazil hot spot for dating apps We told you about Tinder, the location-based, photo-based mobile app that millions across the globe are currently hooked on to for well, getting hooked. Now we hear, not with any surprise, that the app, along with others such as the gay-friendly Grindr are seeing spiked levels of activity in Brazilian cities, thanks to the world’s many visitors all over. According to Quartz India, Tinder gets around 750 million swipes (to reject or like a person) and 10 million ‘matches’ every day, with a 50% increase in downloads since the World Cup kicked off. We are quite surprised though by what the spokesperson has been quoted as saying – that the average Tinder user spends close to 77 minutes a day these days. That’s a massive amount of man hours spent in the hope o f getting laid. Single footie fans like this Did we tell you about Sarthak Agarwal? And while we are at the subject of the social web not sparing celebs who act stupidly, well, it also does not spare non-celebs who act brilliantly. Case in point is CBSE topper from Delhi Sarthak Agarwal, who scored a brilliant 99.6% in his exams and found his picture on a Hindustan Times Facebook post. Little did he know that he could become the butt of hundreds of jibes by ‘normal’ students and failures for no fault of his. ‘Yeh ladke ka kalpanic hai, uska vastav se koi sambandh nahin’; ‘Tu Roadie nahin banega’, ‘Sarthak Agarwal studies 25 hours a day,’ and more read the comments. Then, there were memes featuring Rajinikanth and Alok Nath as also Facebook pages trolling the topper . The pick of them all – Sarthak Agarwa l v/s Alia Bhatt memes, two ends of socia l media’s perceived intelligencia. Agarwal Coaching Classes likes this
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