“Entertainment is a huge motivation while conceptualising ads. This is when humour comes handy,” says Vasudha Mishra, creative group head of Draft FCB Ulka, who along with Sanjay Sharma created the latest Jeevansathi.com ad. With this ad, the portal has switched from its emotional format of father looking for suitable groom for his daughter, to highlight the secrecy that the website guarantees. To drive home the point, the ad has a woman suffering from a severe stomach ache tills she blurts out that their neighbour is looking for a match for their daughter.

The last fortnight saw some more funnies with Chlormint Freshfills continuing with its Dobaara mat poochna catch-line. A boy’s neck is elongated up to the upper-storey of a chawl, supported by a fountain of blue liquid, the moment he pops Chlormint Freshfills. Its creator, Ashish Chakraborty, creative chief of McCann Erickson, prefers to call it ‘quirky’ than ‘humorous’. “It’s a new variant of Chlormint in keeping with its running theme,” he says.

However, it’s Ogilvy and Mather which offered a double delight with new Center Fresh and MotoRokr E8 ads. The former commercial exalts the chewing gum’s ability to keep the mouth of a father in control as his flunked son produces his report card. But it winds up with the ‘calm’ father giving a tight slap to the befuddled son and the voiceover declaring “Center Fresh sirf zuban pe lagam lagata hai, haath pe nahin (Center Fresh reins in consumer’s tongue, not hands)”.

The mind behind these ads, Abhijit Avasthi, says, “Though ads often use emotion and warmth to put a message across, humour has a universal appeal that cuts across communities.” Associated with ads like Fevicol and Cadbury’s in the past, Avasthi admits to using humour in most of his ads though he lets the brand value of the product decide the tone.

According to Sharma, Indians enjoy innocent humour. “If tapped effectively, the result can be rewarding for clients,” he says. To achieve this, exploiting the comic timing of the characters in ads is vital and a joke needs to be told well. “Otherwise, even a well-conceptualised ad can fall flat,” says Chakraborty. “The Chlormint ad could have been more effective had this comic timing been handled better,” he adds.