Reminiscing the days when TVCs were interesting

When was the last time you refrained from switching to other channel during TV commercial break only to watch the advertisement?

You don’t remember, right? Me neither.

These days, it seems as if the TV channels actually telecast the TVCs and show programs in breaks between them. The number of TVCs shown at a time may well take a test of your patience.

However, if you remember, there was once a time when people used to enjoy the TVC breaks, and often it was found that they even hum the TVC tunes and even sing the jingles of their favourite advertisements.

Some TVCs aired during the 90’s and in the decade that followed were highly popular, and, if I might say, groundbreaking as they brought in something new for the audience to watch.

Do you remember the Pepsi advertisement where James, an enormously popular Bangla musician, was seen singing in a crowded street and helped a retail shop see a boom to its business selling Pepsi? I can still remember his powerful voice which made me try to sing like him each time the TVC aired on TV.

There was another Pepsi advertisement which was aired before, which was a remake of the TVC featuring Bollywood star Aamir Khan. Shuvro Dev, another popular singer of Bangla music scenario of that time, was featured in that TVC, and it was possibly the most glamourous advertisement on TV at that time.  The scene where Shuvro Dev was seen crossing the road amid rain and slid through the shutter of a retail shop to get a Pepsi for his guest was indeed a treat to the eyes.

I also remember the TVC of Olympic battery where a popular actress of that time Mita Nur danced with other co-artists with brightly lit electric torches in their hands on an otherwise dark stage.

I am not sure, but that advertisement might have brought the very idea of ‘item song’ to the Bangla films later on.

To add more, the series of TVCs of Shinepukur Holdings with the slogan “Swapno holo shotti, iter por it” brought in a fresh idea of advertisement in television.

The TVCs brought an end to the days of grainy videos and introduced the concept of a story behind the advertisement that made an appeal to the audiences which enhanced the promotion of the product.

Such TVCs are no longer shown in the television any more, and what replaced them are mundane appearances of our new wave of TV models trying to promote the products with concepts what often hardly make any sense, let alone make an appeal to the audiences.

The last time I was really touched after watching a TVC was the Grameenphone advertisement in which the ‘Aynabaazi’ star Chanchal Chowdhury made his emergence as a star as he portrayed the role of a son on his way to return home to his mother, singing the famous song “Koto dur, ar koto dur, bolona”.

I am pretty sure the advertisement made same effect to many others like me.

I tend to wonder what went wrong with TV commercials. With more advanced technologies, more advertisement firms, more copywriters, and even more models, we are producing less appealing concepts and even less interesting portrayals to promote the brands in TVCs these days.

Is it time we go back to watching those old TVCs which once rocked our television watching experiences and try to figure out how to merge concept and technology in a way so that watching advertisements could be interesting once again?