An activist associated with one of the city’s prominent voluntary clubs promoting responsible driving has written to the Advertising Standards Council of India (ASCI) demanding that two advertisements which promote irresponsible and careless driving be taken off air.
While one, a recently aired advertisement of a prominent SUV brand, shows Bollywood superstar Amitabh Bachchan chasing a rash driver who bullies some school kids and after overtaking him at a zebra crossing, bullying him in return. Another advertisement, this time by a well-known mouth freshner brand, shows a biker negotiating his way past a traffic police inspection of riders’ helmets by wearing the skin of a watermelon.
In his letter to the ASCI, a copy of which is with DNA, Bimal Bhatia wrote: “In this advertisement, Amitabh Bachchan is shown driving the vehicle in an irresponsible manner, trying to overtake from the wrong side. Skidding the vehicle in the middle of the street and stopping it...with kids in the vehicle and a superstar like Amitabh Bacchhan, we cannot afford to show this ad, which shows nothing but road rage. Yes, the red car was wrong, but then two wrongs don’t make a right.” On the other ad, he wrote: “…This is nothing but promoting irresponsible riding without proper helmets and should be removed immediately.”
Alka Shah, advisor to road safety patrol of the traffic police, is on the same page with Bhatia over the SUV advertisement. “It is an irresponsible advertisement and it’s not helping the cause of road safety by reining in road deaths and rash driving.”
Ad man and veteran commentator Alyque Padamsee, however, disagrees. “It is not supposed to be taken seriously. And in the case of the watermelon advertisement, I’d say, on the contrary, it makes you remember that you should wear helmets. The watermelon is a very clever way of expressing the idea.”
Allan Collaco, secretary-general, ASCI, denied having received the complaint and promised to look into it once he gets one. “We will expedite the resolution of the complaint once we receive it.”
Responding to this, Bhatia insisted that an email complaint had indeed been sent and forwarded DNA a copy of it as proof. The email, according to this record, was sent on December 28.
