the trivialising of news

If you stay in Bangalore and if you remotely follow what's on and what's not on the city billboards, you would have noticed a semi-clad (is there is anything lesser than that?) model with newsprint on her body. Most of her is without clothes. There is just one word on the hoarding - Addictive. And then the product logo. Now if you don't stay in Bangalore and I tell you to take a guess what product is she selling, you probably will not it right. Let me tell you. Its an ad for a newspaper. Surprise surprise. And now guess which one. Did I hear you say a tabloid? Nope. Its not a tabloid. Its Deccan Chronicle. 

I am not just surprised at this campaign but am also deeply pained. Is this what Advertising has come to? I have a lot of issues with this kind of advertising. One, its a newspaper that's making an entry into a new region and all it can offer its readers is Sleaze? There are no issues, no USP's and no claim of better journalism! Two, the agency couldn't come up with anything other than skin show to sell a 'newspaper'? Is this what advertising has come to? You replace that logo and you can well be advertising a porn website! 

And finally, if the agency has recommended this to the client and the client has accepted this route, I am sure they would think that this campaign would work. Which means that they consider the local population to be so desperately wanting of sex and sleaze that they would just trample each other to get their hands on editions of this newspaper. Which brings me to the most important aspect of this post. Is this what our society has come to? Would we buy anything which would have skin to show in it? Is the media so bereft of issues that it has to rely on sleaze to sell itself? I think this is serious underestimation of the intelligence of the audience. And it is about time somebody takes stock of what goes out in the public space. Two reasons why I say that - one, we have a lot of young kids still wanting to read the newspaper for news and for making their 'language' stronger. And second, I don't want motorists to stop in the middle of the road just to gaze at a hardly-clad women throwing the traffic behind them completely out of order!