If you turn on your television in wee hours of the morning you’ll see a similar program running on many channels: TELE-SHOPPING NETWORK. Here you’ll see many angrez log ( in ridiculously dubbed hindi) and few of our usual telly actors trying to sell us a wide range of products: face creams and hair lotions to slimming and fitness equipment and a new found one,gem stones.
Out of sheer curiosity (and the fact that I could use some help to put down few extra pounds) I saw one of these slimming equipment commercials. A guy with 6-pack abs and big biceps (looking very obviously steroid-fed) and a girl in a two-piece bikini with an enviable figure were giving some gyan on how our sedentary lifestyle (read, hogging and doing nothing style) is bad for our health, and what a boon the slimming-belt is which helps melt all that extra fat from our body.Yeah right!
While switching channels one day I saw a serious looking old (presumably knowledgeable)person lecturing on how our stars affect our lives and how big a role gem stones play in consoling (???) them and making them mend their ways. Hello...whatever happened to a person's dedication,ability and perseverance?
Highly irritated with this, I felt I should write something about it. I don’t mean to say that I have anything against them. They have to sell, and we’re their target. However as an end-user I need more persuasion and authentication than seeing and believing a person who’s paid to say that a certain thing will do wonders for me.
Time and again we’ve talked about exploiting marketing strategies adopted by companies to sell their products. As consumers we’re always taken for granted. That’s the reason why we can get banned drugs and medicines very easily over the counter. They know no matter what newspapers or news channels say, we’re ignorant.
We expect them to act with responsibility when we need to do that ourselves first. It is our life and our health we're talking about.We need to practice caution and act with awareness. It is for us to choose the best thing for us, we cannot afford to be naïve then,right?
