LAHORE:
Bollywood’s involvement with our local businesses be it films, music or fashion, has always been a contentious issue in the country. Any collaboration with professionals across the border is typically seen as a sellout at best and an unpatriotic act at worst. While Bollywood has largely remained a sore subject for our ailing film industry as the thug who steals precious screen space, it has now become a topic in many a household gatherings as the villain who is usurping billboard space for valuable ad campaigns.
When Firdous, a company that has been producing lawn for several years came into the limelight (quite literally) with its campaign last year with Bollywood’s reigning queen Kareena Kapoor, many eyes popped and mouths were left agape at the mere thought of how a Pakistani enterprise could land Bollywood’s crown jewel. While till last year, the industry and people at large were stunned by this coup, this year Firdous’ billboards with Deepika Padukone and debutante Crescent lawn’s ad’s with Sushmita Sen, have set tongues wagging. and on fire.
“I am totally against this using of Bollywood starlets to market our products,” said Shama, one of the millions lining up at a lawn exhibition. “We have such beautiful girls here like Shaista Wahidi and Nadia Hussain who look great on billboards, so what’s the need for getting Deepika Padukone?”. Perhaps with Kareena Kapoor last year, people felt that it was a onetime event — the shock value was enough to resonate with the masses for a very long time.
The fact that now, this gimmick has become a ‘trend’ is what disturbs many as yet another tactic of Indian supremacy.
New timers Crescent Lawn rebuke the critcism against Sen. They say, “We don’t believe in shooting stars, our theory is to use shining stars and Sushmita is currently the only Miss Universe in the sub-continent,” spoke Farhad Naveed, the COO of the group. Omer Saleem, the director of marketing and sales at Firdous, is indignant that his company is being censured so acerbically by all and sundry. “I have managed to sell in India, Malaysia and the UAE because of the Kareena Kapoor campaign. Believe me I didn’t do as much business in Pakistan as I did internationally,” stated Saleem. “This is business. I am not doing this for fun. The return of investment is far greater when we used an international celebrity like Kapoor”. He pointed out that nobody spoke to him about his lawn when they were using local models.
“Who knows our models abroad? Name one model or celebrity that people abroad can identify with,” Saleem asks challenges. And he is right. We have a severe dearth of stars, let alone stars that have global recognition and fame.
Naveed from Crescent says, “We have worked with local talent. Our last few campaigns had Iman Ali representing Stoneage. Since we don’t have much female talent in Pakistan, plus, whoever was available was being used by other lawn brands so we opted for Sushmita Sen as an eastern iconic face people can relate to.”
While fashion industry insiders also condemn the Bollywood move, PR professional Selina Rashid holds a pragmatic view. “These ads are to attract a certain demographic that we do not fall into. Such ads have massive recall and aspirational value.” If they did not, it wouldn’t be a point of contention to begin with. Yet someone like Saleem is quite irate with the way things have turned ugly: “There is no law against using Bollywood actors in ads so how can they ask me to pull down my billboards! I have spent hard earned money on these campaigns. If India is so hated then we should stop all kinds of international trade starting from multinationals. Stop drinking Pepsi and Coke, then if you want to promote local Colas. Ban all international products then,” he says.
The ‘we should promote our own talent’ slogan is a double sided dagger, a handful of media savvy talent exists in the country in the first place and they too do not have the kind of status to lure in foreign trade. Secondly, instead of being threatened and on the defensive, one should become strong enough to compete with international talent.
It is time to stop the endless cribbing and as one gentleman Asghar concludes the lawn war debate. “We should promote our talent to that level where it is at par and even beyond international talent. We should not grow by obstructing other’s growth.”
The Crescent lawn exhibit opens today, only time will tell how much lawn the ex-Miss Universe sells.
Published in The Express Tribune, March 6th, 2011.
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