Indian Advertisements - Are they going regressive?

An advertisement is considered good when the product it’s trying to popularize, is tantalizingly put across, so that the viewer will not rest till he or she has satisfied the urge to use it. Indian advertising has come a long way and today it can boast to be the best in its department, capable of beating the world’s best, in class, substance and genre. But what worries me is, that, of late, there’s an increasing tendency to bank on negativity to highlight the goodness of a product. The most glaring example that comes to my mind is the battle between ‘Complan’ and ‘Horlicks’ – some of the facts being bandied about wouldn’t even stand an honest technical scrutiny! And lesser said about the ad on ‘Fair and Lovely’ cream, the better it would be. It’s simply obnoxious and regressive and there’s no doubt on that score, at least to my mind!! It just goes to reinforce the age old Indian weakness for the white skin, and we’ve no right to blame the likes of the late Michael Jackson or even the hot Hollywood actress, Halle Beri for bleaching their skin. There’s yet another class of advertisements which try to put down age old and time tested practices as granny’s idiosyncrasies – the ones on ‘Chik Satin Shampoo’ and ‘Vivel’ readily come to my mind.
An ideal ad, to my mind, should be positive oriented and catchy enough to urge the viewer to get into the product’s user bandwagon at the earliest.