Missing Person Notice Turns Out To Be Kahaani Movie Promo
Here’s a poster I spotted on the walls of Tulsi Pipe Road, at Lower Parel. Think it’s a notice for a missing person? Look closely:
The text on the poster says:
ARNAB BAGCHI
Age: 31years, Complexion: Wheatish, Height: 5’11”.
Please share any information with Vidya Bagchi at
www.facebook.com/kahaanithefilm
This strikes me as a really cheap marketing ploy to grab your attention. Using something as vital as a missing person notice for an advertisement makes it so other genuine missing notices will be mistaken for promotions and ignored.
Remember a movie called Criminal, featuring Manisha Koirala, Nagarjuna and Ramya Krishnan? A leading daily carried a piece right in the centre of their news spreads, reporting that one of the actresses had been found murdered. It turned out to be a promotion for the movie. That was in extremely poor taste and I think, so is this advertisement. What’s a movie that associates with the likes of Sujoy Ghosh and Vidya Balan, doing with an ad like this?
I wouldn’t expect a marketer to think beyond his/her product and be willing to go to any extent to generate buzz. But what about the channels that carry these messages? Does it occur to them that these commercial messages masquerading as actual news/information, comprise their validity?
Posters not being under the control of any one entity, are difficult to monitor. But in this case, they may be violating other laws by putting up the posters in the first place. Incidentally, this isn’t the first time Bollywood posters have been problematic. The Kahaani poster is a stone’s throw away from the Wall Project offenders.
