This has to be the best ad for mobile phones in India by far. It’s the Spice Popkorn phone ad which had lots of airtime during the ICC Cricket World Cup 2011. Â “Subramanium, Almoonium….”. Hilarious 🙂 !
Hitler Lock !
I went to Hampi some time ago. The hotel where I was staying used a rather imaginatively named padlock.
Yeah, you read that right.  It is a “Hitler Star” lock , 8 levers and “Hitler Tested – OK” !  While this is amusing at first, I am not sure how someone Jewish would feel.  Some googling reveals that this morbidly named brand is quite popular with sightings all over India.  It is in fact churned out at “Hitler lock enterprises” in Aligarh, the headquarters of the Indian lock industry.
This also reminded me of the Hari Sadu ad which was incredibly popular on TV a few years ago.
My feeling is that Indian’s overall know Hitler as a “bad person”, but have now come to associate his name with a mild rebuke which is hardly insulting. Â I feel that the majority of Indians are hardly aware of the horrific crimes perpetrated by this deranged man. Instead I’ve noticed some folks actually try to magnify Hitler’s connections with India by propagating his ridiculous Aryan theories and citing the use of the Swastika. Â Why ? Here is a Wall Street Journal article I found which does a good job at explaining this curious Indian fascination with Hitler.
Worst and Best Indian 3G Ads
Now that India finally gets 3G technology, Indian mobile operators are busy rolling out 3G ads during the cricket world cup. The worst of all the 3G ads has to be the series from Reliance. Their attempt to convey that 3G allows you to easily multi-task is crap. Note that their ad series doesn’t actually show anyone multi-tasking, instead the characters mouth supposedly funny clever sequences. Doesn’t work at all and is fucking annoying.
The Worst:
The best 3G Ad is the Vodafone ad. Although I have mixed feelings about the ZooZoo and I thought the idea was getting stale, however this was fantastically done. The ad has catchy music and links the superman concept to the potential of 3G amazingly well.
The Best: