A controversial ad showing an AIDS infected man as Hitler has outraged Europe, but Indian ad-men can't seem to fathom the fuss.
If the AIDS virus has to be given a face, what do you think it will look like? How about Hitler? But a new AIDS awareness TV commercial released in Germany recently has not gone down well with health charities and organisations working against AIDS. Jewish groups denounced it as “a defamation and mockery” of Holocaust victims.
The depiction of Hitler making out with a woman without using protection and a punch-line that says, ‘AIDS is a mass-murderer’ has also been interpreted by some as something that will increase the stigma already attached to infected people by equating them with a mass murderer.
The ad, which was to alternately use the face of Josef Stalin and Saddam Hussein to personify AIDS, was intended to run till World AIDS Day on December 1. Now the Hitler version has been pulled off YouTube and may not be aired on German TV either.
But most ad professionals in India feel it’s much ado about nothing. “Some people have a habit of making too much noise. The ad has a perfectly normal analogy with a perfectly normal intention. Unless someone is trying a publicity stunt, I don’t see a reason for a controversy,” says adman Rensil D’Silva.
However, others believe using shock value in a positive way makes for better impact than using it in a negative way. Radharani Mitra who recently created the ‘Jo Bola Vo Hee Sikander — Condom’ campaign for AIDS awareness in India says, “The ads had shock value because they showed a group of people publicly talking about condoms.
But it made them realise it wasn’t immoral behaviour, only helping them have safer sex.” The campaign worked in India, and a later survey estimates a 20 per cent jump in usage of condoms.
But while Sikander (Alexander) is highly regarded in India, Hitler doesn’t seem to evoke much sentiment either way. “I don’t find the message very convincing. Why are they trying to say that someone who knows he is infected with AIDS will deliberately spread it,” asks adman Ashish Khazanchi.
Adds KS Chakravarthy (Chax), “It says ‘AIDS is a mass murderer’, not ‘someone with AIDS is a mass murderer’. Where is the controversy? My suggestion to the ‘activists’ is — get a life, please.”
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