More on Visa Go

An enterprising youngster dug this out for me a little while ago - this appeared in the DNA newspaper in Mumbai on March 19, 2009, when the Visa Go campaign was launched.

I am quoting in full from the body copy - I kid you not, God's own truth! this is the body copy and not the Powerpoint of the creative presentation the agency made when selling this piece of junk to the client. Or did the client make this Powerpoint when selling this piece of turkey to the agency and paid the latter to take the blame?

Anyway, here goes:

"It's one word, just one tiny, two-letter word that makes amazing things happen. Go turns a special moment into an unforgettable celebration. Go is what makes you want to say 'I do' in style. Go is the reason we decide to spend a lifetime together after just a week of knowing each other. Go requests the pleasure of the whole world's company to celebrate a new milestone in your life. Go loves the little rituals and the big feasts. Go looks at a honeymoon in Scotland and says 'yes'. Go lets you live your dream."

I am not sure copywriters can actually write this stuff. Maybe as an exercise in creative writing they can - and maybe that's where Visa got their copy from, a creative writing workshop for would be writers of the Great American Whatever.

There can be no other source for such overripe garbage - no agency could have written this.

Five short steps to full health

It's simple - forget running, walking, yoga, aerobics, tai chi, lifting weights, etc. Whatever you'd been doing till now to stay healthy is all wrong.

The answer is much simpler and so much more fun - all you got to do bathe five times a day with Lifebuoy, and bingo! no more bunking (never mind Fanta says that bunking is allowed), no more not being able to attend exams, or work, or telling the boss through a handkerchief placed on your phone that you've been sneezing all through the night, boss, not a wink's sleep.

All bosses have to do is to replace all their soaps in all their loos with Lifebuoy.



Hindustan Unilever has made consumers forget the difference between causality and correlation. I am not accusing HUL of bad research - but I am indeed accusing them of unethical advertising. Healthcare research requires far more stringent protocols than the kind of research that must have gone into making this ad. As the country's largest FMCG company, HUL should know better than to mislead their consumers, read mothers and housewives, into believing that the shortest way to good health for their kids is bathing with Lifebuoy 5 times a day, and ignoring other ways of keeping the kids in good shape.

Who gets paid for these? And why?

When a huge global brand employs a huge global agency to create a huge new campaign, the general tendency is to bate breath, nibble on nails, and generally await the kingdom that is to come, when all can say "hosannah, what a brilliant campaign!".

Which is I guess what many of us did when Chiat Day, LA (I think) went about launching the Visa Go campaign. When the campaign did get launched, I said, hey wait a sec! is this, is this really what you guys were working on? Really? This mother is a wimp, a WIMP!! a godawful WIMP!!

So Visa gets used for travel? So tell me something I didn't know! So more people use Visa to travel - so tell me how does that affect me! Is it faster, cheaper, better than other known forms of travel - does it get me from here to there and back again in better shape? Tell me something!, anything, which makes me believe that the communicator has something to say.

And then I saw this one



At least this had a message: your Visa debit card can do most things that cash can, so you don't need to go to a ATM to withdraw money. I don't like the ad - the leadup is too long, the mood swings from aggro to sing-a-long abruptly, and the fact that the agency knows it has a crappy idea shows in the production.

But at least it has a message, and a reason why. Of course, carpers and cavillers will complain that you try to pay your rick guy with a debit card, just try!

It IS rocket science, y'know!

If you thought that making kitchenware, refrigerators, and indeed even deodorants, was easy, you gotta think again.

When I was young, and the world was not ruled by TV, branded deos were made in USA (Ulhasnagar Sindhi Association), and refrigerators and other appliances were made by Voltas, Allwyn and others in factories, where they hammered and welded stuff together.

Now, towards the end of the first decade of the new millenium, we know better. Thanks to a recent bunch of Godrej ads, we know that

• Godrej makes rockets (a fact they had successfully hidden from public knowledge till now)
• it takes rocket science to make refrigerators and other appliances

And that's not all. Their new Cinthol Deo is also powered by rocket technology. Check this out - the Deo has got to be a mini rocket the way it goes about chasing Hritik - and the latter better watch his a**! And I am not going to get into the phallic symbolism of the whole shebang.