They are big. They are everywhere. They are…ads. And Bangalore has a lot of them. Most ads here in Bangalore are hand-painted and they come in two variations:
- Large billboards, which are just some type of fabric over a metal frame. They so not seem to be very strong, so after a bit of wind or rain you can see some of them ripped to bits.
- Ads painted on the walls of buildings and in (stone) fences
The hand-painted ads often feature nice and artistic drawings, and generally all ads are very people-centric – you rarely see an ad which shows only the product and not a Bollywood star (and always a star, not just someone) presenting the product. Also, building ads are very common („60% complete“).
Then there are the radio ads. Very annoying, especially on Radio City, where you have a constant Moderation-Commercial-Song iteration. However, RC is the only channel (I know of) which actually has mostly English moderation. Radio Mirchi, most shuttle drivers‘ favourite, features Kannada moderation đ (or Hindi, I have no idea how to find out which).
Well, back on topic, on to TV. I don’t watch much TV, so most was during the world cup. But what I saw was, well, repetitive. I spottet only half a dozen different commercials, some in both a long an a short version. They even reperted them during the same commercial break… And on the few occacions of watching TV apart from the world cup, there hasn’t been much more commercial diversity, but much more often. Thank god (European) football is not yet like American Football, where the game is interrupted for commercials. However, my viewing mainly focused on the Star* channels (hey, they even broadcast „Whose line is it anyway?“ đ although only at 6 am đ ), which are in English and heavily US-influenced, so this view may be very selective.