Amul Macho back with to "toing" it

Kolkata, Feb 19 (UNI) The "Yeh to bada toing hai" advertisement is back with a bang, with the Orangutans now doing an innerwear jig to keep the Information&Broadcasting (I&B) Ministry at bay after first edition got banned.

The I&B Ministry had prohibited the transmission of the advertisements of 'Lux Cozy Underwear' and 'Amul Macho Underwear' on all broadcasting platforms in 2007 questioning its content. The two ads were earlier cleared by the Advertising Standards Council of India (ASCI), the self-regulatory body of the advertising industry.

The I&B ministry also directed all television channels to strictly adhere to the advertisement code prescribed under the Cable Television Networks (Regulation) Act, 1995 and Rules framed there under.

The Amul Macho Advertisement, which was produced last time with the village girl washing the cloth in a pond, was made at the cost of Rs 10 crore, company director Sandeep Seksaria said launching the new advertisement.

This time the budget was increased to Rs 15 crore and the same agency Saints And Warriors given the charge to make a new advertisement.

The Agency Chairman Pushpinder Singh said, "This was a huge challenge to outdo the previous advertisement, keeping in mind the huge acceptability it had got from the people. In two months the ad received over one lakh hits on You Tube" "It reflected in the sales. This time also we tried to make the advertisement a surrogate for male sexuality. But this time the focus is on the urban and urbane mass. That's the reason it was shot in Malaysia and we chose to use animals to give it an animation effect. But the main challenge was to outdo the previous ad," he said.

"However, we retained Sana Khan our model in the first advertisement to maintain the continuity factor. The jingle "Yeh to Bada Toing hai" is also there and so is the brand positioning -crafted for fantasy," he said.

Asked if the people rejected the advertisement terming it immoral, he said, "Making an adult advertisement in a country like India in itself is a big task. It's daring you may say. For you never know whom you hurt and when and why. But people in general are not hypocrits, it has something to do with a miniscule section of people," he said.

The I&B Ministry had censored the ad on the grounds of being indecent, vulgar and suggestive and thus violative of Rule 7 (8) of the Advertising Code prescribed under the Cable Television Act.

Model Sana Khan also termed the previous ad as one of the best concepts and termed the new one as more an adventure and a sure hit.

UNI BA PP RN1518