Get Knocked-up - So that we can stay in business

Get Knocked-up - So that we can stay in business - #AdsThatSuck

There was a time when Hindustan Unilever used to take over YouTube and force everyone to watch this video..What this video is telling is for you to get knocked-up, have lots of children so that Unilever can stay in Business. Marketing is a dirty business. Convincing people to buy something that they might not need is not necessarily a vocation. However when you think you can be one step ahead of the audience and outsmart them is a little unnerving. Somehow i could never get convinced of Unilever's Project Sunshine ads. It smacks of self-reverential goodness. It is like you show cute cats, cuter puppies and then show your product in the hope that people will buy it. It insults one's intelligence.
Sorry maybe i am just cynical but Project Sunlight's #brightfuture just does not cut it.

#AdsThatSuck

Comments

My Machine of Loving Grace

Yesterday was wonderful. It was Saturday. The house felt more quiet after a flurry of activities. I gave myself permission to explore my curiosity. It's a wonderful time to be curious, especially when we're witnessing what might be the biggest transformation of our lifetimes. Claude's character voice Out of all the AI tools available, I find myself gravitating more and more toward Claude for its distinctive voice and character. As a user of technology, there's a growing sense of presence—a semblance of a particular personality that has slowly become an essential part of my life. I've come to expect Claude to be there as a highly available, intelligent sidekick. I use Claude several times a day, mostly focused on specific tasks at hand. I'm trying to understand, in retrospect, what triggers within me the decision to turn to Claude. I feel I need to isolate and identify this muscle—this muscle of agency—because the future of work will largely depend on our abil...

Revisiting America

I have been open about my obsession with America. I recently visited US after 7 years. Revisiting US was like discovering an old T-Shirt which was hiding at the bottom of your wardrobe for many years - feels alien initially but then it fits like a glove but then again, you sneer at your own juvenile fashion choices. I feel I resonate with US because it has some of the growing pains and dual identities that I have. It was interesting to see how some of my reactions to it have changed over the years. In a way, revisiting was an act of looking yourself into a time-machine mirror - feeling and juxtaposing your feelings with what you felt so many years ago. I went to the US for the first time in 2005 when i was a graduate hire for Microsoft. Its been almost 20 years since i first set foot in the US. So a few things changed. America's juvenile antics amuse me less and less - I feel so sad/ridiculous that a country supposed so far ahead on so many things can get such basics twisted arou...

Reflections on Sandekphu and Salesforce

So I just reached back to Bengaluru and I keep thinking perhaps this is a good moment to write something. Some kind of mental snapshot is warranted. I am hoping to join a new company - Salesforce after working in Visa for just 1.5 years. I just completed another trek - some 80 kms walk in the park. During the trek, I wrote down a bunch of mental sticking points and the advantage of having such a list is to see which one of them are perhaps temporary and which ones might stick around for sometime and haunt one. During the trek, I kept reminding myself that I should not fixate on the destination - that lofty peak or that supposedly pretty valley. The trek itself was the prize that I have earned. And the one that I wanted to celebrate. And celebrate is the right word for it. There is nothing that comes close to describing what it was. Just stretching the body and mind and asserting its capabilities. During those walks, I got reminded of Illayaraja's song "Pitchai Pathiram" ...

Ananth's Blog

Search This Blog