Adil Najam
I am as excited about Pakistan’s Test cricket victory against Australia as the next guy. Maybe even more.
But this huge (quarter page) advertisement on the front page of today’s (Sunday’s) The News is just plain bad taste.
That it is an ad for Pepsi – a major global brand, but also the official sponsor of Pakistan cricket (over-sized Pepsi logos are the most prominent thing on the official clothing of Pakistani cricketers), makes it only more so.
It was obviously made in a hurry. But I, for one, wish it had never been made. Whether Pepsi does so or not, let me apologize to Ricky Ponting. This, as they say, is just not cricket!
I do not know what was the thought behind this Ad?
If they thought this was funny; it is not. Only early today I had a chat with my 7-year old explaining to him that making fun of other people’s names is not funny, because we would not like it if others make fun of ours.
If they thought it was a commentary on Pakistan cricket and a show of support for Pakistani cricket; it is not. Despite the exciting victory we pulled off, no serious cricket fan will claim that Pakistan is the better team of the two. There is much that we should try to learn from Australia, even in this Test: their fight back till the very end, for example! The argument I often give to my 7-year old is also valid here: imagine what might be our reaction if Indian or Australian or British newspapers started carrying Ads like this about Pakistan each time we lost a game or something bad happened in Pakistan (and those, unfortunately, happen all too often!)?
But that is not the point. The point is that this Ad has no point. At least no redeeming point.
All it does is insult. And not just Ricky Ponting. It insults the brand integrity of Pepsi, and even more the brand identity of Pakistan cricket (since Pepsi is its official sponsor) and of Pakistan and Pakistanis in general (the green background is not accidental, nor is the bouncing kangaroo). It presents and projects us as a mean, insensitive, gloating, and petty people. Some of us may, indeed, be that. But I am not prepared to be ‘branded’ in that light; and certainly not by Pepsi.
Maybe I am over-reacting. And clearly this is not the of the problems we face. But sometimes it is the small things that pinch hardest, because they become metaphor for all the big things that are wrong. I just wish that whoever made and approved this Ad had read Mian Mohammad Bakhsh’s Saif-uk-Muluk:
Dushman marey tey khushi na kariye sajjna vi mar jaana
(Do not gloat when an enemy dies, your friends too will die)
Editor’s note: Here are some examples of bad advertising; of good advertising; and of advertising nostalgia.
..so where is the insult?
I am Aussie and this is hilarious! Don’t worry guys, we get the humour and give it out a bit (a LOT!) ourselves, we can take as good as we get. Bring on the next series!
And its ok to be a little predictable when it comes to a harmless fun :/
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dO3N2HCnu2Y
This was a light humor even if you were on the receiving side.
Obviously this was a pakistani top notch ad agencies who know the wit and humor to its core, pleasing their pepsi boses. I hope it didnt go over the heads of average pakistanis. May be I dont know todays pakistan so well then why am I always emphasizing (nice try) in my suddle ways to not be so
“predictible”. Now the pepsi people know all about what make us happy.
And offcourse I would not take your gentlemaness as your weakness sir, but are you afraid that the next big punch would come could be from the other side?
I gotta a big (kangroos ) kick outta it.
Take it like a man! :-)
But that is not the point. The point is that this Ad has no point. At least no redeeming point.
Pun intended?
But I got the point about the pointing out the very pointed Ad by Pepsi playing on the disappointment and pinching on Ricky Thomas “Punter” Ponting.
But before we pile on Pepsi and pike them to Pluto, what about the publisher? Of the Pakistani paper, The News? He took the paisa for publishing the pointed Ad; should he not be pickled? Publishers have the ply through paid ads for pictorial integrity as well as policing themselves for any potentially politically problematic Pandora’s box. When did the publisher become philanthropist? Piety bound? The paisa was pocketed. Plush amounts, not peanuts. Pox on him? Phew. Not I. But do pluck his brows plentiful.
Now, I realize the puma knives are out on Pepsi and they are being picked apart for their pointy heads and their professionally weak press and print prefectures. All because putting down with the use of disappointment “Punter” Ponting. Perhaps it was the prominence of the word disappointment which clearly was a packaged packet. Parked them bad, true. Perhaps a prankster copied and pasted and primed the font for pun. Who preconceived it?
So, to be not be provincial. And to be pillar of “pucca” truth, this is really a “pataka”.
And from Perth to Palmerston to Penrith to Port Pirie, Pakistanis are loved and Pakistanis pash them back.
So was it:
Pepsi’s poor taste? Precisely.
Pepsi’s poor judgement? Perhaps.
Pepsi being petty? Probably not.
Pepsi’s pozzy is plonked for this prezzy. No pav for a thousand parsec.
Point I am making is pardon them for being in the putty?
Yes, please!
Pnough said!