When Mohammad Khan moved back to India

after spending the better part of the 1960s in

London's advertising industry, he was shocked.

"It felt like going back into the stone age of

advertising. In the early 1970s, there was an ad

for Calcium-Sandoz that said 'Strong Teeth and

Healthy Bones'. Where is the advertising in this?"

Khan played a part in changing that. After

working with Sylvester DaCunha, who was then

handling advertising for Amul, he joined hands

with Arun Nanda and Ajit Balakrishnan in 1973 to

found Rediffusion, which subsequently became

one of the top independent agencies in India.

Two years later, Lintas's Alyque Padamsee

unleashed the Liril girl on the nation. The

image of the bikini-clad Karen Lunel under a

waterfall changed the course of television

advertising in India.

The advent of colour television during the 1982

Delhi Asian Games played a big part in that

change. That was also the year adman Piyush

Pandey began his career. "Colour television

marked the shift from print and cinema to

television," notes Pandey, now Executive

Chairman & Creative Director of Ogilvy & Mather

India and South Asia. Prasoon Joshi, President,

McCann Worldgroup South Asia, who is also a

lyricist, believes television led to the

democratisation of advertising. "You don't have to

be very literate to understand TV ads."

Despite the growing influence of television,

agencies continued to produce memorable print

campaigns. "From the mid-1970s to the early

2000s there was fantastic print work," says Khan,

who penned the tagline "If you want to talk, you

don't have to walk" for Superphone intercom in

1978.

An ad for Hotel Dona Sylvia in Goa had beautiful long copy and the hotel was booked for months: Elsie Nanji

Some notable print campaigns from that period include

FourSquare, with the tagline, 'Live Life Kingsize,' and Garden Sarees, which also had television commercials. "The Garden ads brought a new aesthetic to the medium," says Anand Halve, coauthor of AdKatha: the Story of Indian Advertising. Elsie Nanji, Managing Partner of Red Lion Publicis, fondly remembers a print ad in

1983 for Hotel Dona Sylvia in Goa: "It had beautiful long copy and the hotel was booked for months." Nanji, with Ashok Kurien, created Thums Up's 'Taste the Thunder' campaign and the controversial ad for Tuff shoes featuring Milind Soman and Madhu Sapre in the nude. Echoing Nanji, Joshi says he really misses the long copy of Khan and others. "Today is the age of slogans."

The 1980s saw the emergence of the iconic 'Lalitaji' in the Surf commercial. She was created by Padamsee to counter the rise of Nirma, which had an equally popular campaign with the jingle "Hema, Rekha, Jaya aur Sushma… sab ki pasand Nirma."

Towards the fag end of the decade came the 'Hamara Bajaj' ad, created by Lintas. It spoke as much of national pride as of the scooter itself. By this time, advertising was no longer limited to city-bred, Englishspeaking copywriters. Pandey, from Jaipur, and Joshi, born in Almora, Uttarakhand, began to infuse smalltown sensibilities into their commercials. For instance, Pandey came up with an ad forFevicol with 3 Idiots director Rajkumar Hirani, where two groups of people, aided by an elephant, try in vain to pull apart two pieces of wood stuck together.

Joshi, inspired by the practice in villages of dunking mangoes in a well to cool them, had Aamir Khan drawing a bucketful of Coca Cola bottles from a village well. Admen started using unusual insights to work brands into consumers' hearts. Lowe Lintas's 'Daag Acche Hain' campaign for Surf Excel is a case in point. "The whole idea was if you are powerful you won't fear your enemy, rather you'll celebrate him," says R. Balakrishnan, Chairman and Chief Creative Officer of Lowe Lintas & Partners. Better known as Balki, he is the brain behind the 'What an idea, sirji!' commercials for Idea Cellular and directed the Hindi films Cheeni Kum and Paa.

From the mid-1970s to the early 2000s there was fantastic print work: Mohammad Khan

Of late, Indian ads have been winning big at international awards. TheHappydent palace commercial won a silver lion and a bronze lion at Cannes in 2007. Ram

Madhvani, who directed the ad, says that though the commissioned length of the commercial was 60 seconds, Perfetti Van Melle, which owns Happydent, decided to go with the 85-second cut after watching it.

Two other campaigns that have raked in awards are the Hutch pug ads andVodafone's ZooZoos. Rajiv Rao, National Creative Director, O&M India, says the roots of ZooZoos lay in his wanting to do a comic strip kind of series.

While advertising has changed for the better in several respects from three-four decades ago, Khan is not too happy with the over-reliance on celebrities to promote brands. Padamsee believes advertisers and companies tire of a campaign before consumers do. "Amul is the only brand that has survived everything and continues to be consistent."

Salman Khan in his 20s in a 1980s ad for Hero Honda CD100

The Salman Khan in this advertisement for Hero Honda CD100 is about 25 years younger than the

superstar Salman of today and precedes his blockbuster debut in a lead role inMaine Pyar Kiya.

Before entering his destined world of movies, @beingsalmankhan dabbled for a while in the world of modelling. This is one of his ads that I still remember (The character Salman is playing this this ad is called Bunty). Unfortunately, it isn’t the complete ad. The left part is missing and I am unable to locate that (if anyone has access to the full version, do let me know).

The Hero Honda CD100

…the toughest of terrains just to prove a point to the other person.

Like looks Sunny insists that his red bike is the finest looking bike in town. Bunty feels his Hero Honda easily commands more attention (expecially with the girls in his colony).

But we cant really blame the two. It is so easy to be fiercely proud of your Hero Honda that you’d never let another bike steal the show – even of the other bike is also a Hero Honda CD 100 – What a bike!

Hero HondaFill it. Shut it. Forget it.