Shoppers, Stop!

Shoppers’ Stop advertisements never cease to amaze me.
They are distinctive, black and white images with a tag line, and you can make one out from a distance. The brand recall for Shoppers’ stop is amazing.
Several of them are also brazen and in poor taste.
Sometime ago I had seen one with children playing with toys. ‘Keep them quiet, avoid noise pollution’ or something to that effect, ran the tagline. And today I saw one which showed a woman sitting by the side of the road in a micromini and high heels, with a guy in a motorcycle in the background, who had stopped and had turned around to look at her. The tagline read ‘Wear a short skirt. Hitchhike. Save fuel.’
I fail to see the humour in either. If at all they encourage dangerous trends. The first one encourages parents to fulfill a child’s needs and demands by gifting her toys, an easy way out, and potentially very damaging to the way the child learns to view relationships. The second is totally out of context in India. If a girl tries to do what is suggested in the advertisement, she won’t just get a ride, she’ll likely get abducted, raped, and murdered. One could argue that they are not to be taken seriously just as Sardarji jokes are not, but somehow I find them in poor taste.
Unfortunately the whole Shoppers’ Stop campaign is beautifully executed. It’s simple and classy, and I suspect, pretty much a success. That’s what makes it even more disturbing. Just like the Pond’s White Beauty campaign.

As an aside, let me mention that I have a renewed sense of respect and admiration for all those Sardar boys and girls, who grow up listening to Sardar jokes, and learn to take it sportingly, even when they know that they are some of the smartest people around. A dear friend of mine who is a Sardar with a razor sharp mind and a sense of humour to match, often refers to it as a form of racism. He’s got a theory that I have come to respect. He says that one of the reasons why Sardars are able to do so well in foreign countries, even in the face of extreme racism is that they have learnt to deal with it, because they have faced it in a different form all their lives on their home soil.
It’s something to think about.