Imagine being in charge of AIDS-prevention in India, where you've to market condoms to the masses, amidst this country's socio-religious-conservatively charged atmosphere. Rather than cringing at the thought, some people actually rise up to it, and produce some great advertising campaigns.
Condoms for the India's trucking community, are branded as "Dipper". They are inspired by a request for dimmed headlights painted on the back of trucks in the country, "Use Dipper At Night," which S.Y. Quraishi, head of the National AIDS Control Organization, hopes will provide plenty of free advertising.
Another one showed three cricket stumps, sheathed in condoms, beneath the slogan: "Save your wicket from the unwanted googlies of life!"
While on this topic, some heartening news came out this month. The estimated number of AIDS victims in India has, er, dipped. And what a dip it was - between 2-3 million, instead of almost 6.
Back to the ad, I actually haven't seen this particular request to use the dipper at night. It's all mostly "Horn OK Please" and other stuff that I never read. Well, I work during the day, and, um, have better things to do at night than read signs on the back of trucks right? 
No, no, I meant, things like observing the visibility of Alcor, the tiny companion to Mizar in the Big Dipper, to assess the level of pollution! I like to watch the sky before dipping off to sleep, don't you?
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[…] Filed under: india, culture, politics, marketing — mahendrap @ 6:48 pm On the heels of my earlier post on condom advertising in India, comes […]
You know I rather doubt that the AIDS deaths or figures are decreasing. I too read that report but viewed it cynically. There’s a lot of juggling going on and frankly its possible that the initial AIDS/HIV figures were inflated and therefore the percieved dip. But actually at the same time I think that the AIDS/HIV figures are probably worse than they actually are on the ground! One just doesn’t know the truth where AIDS is concerned.
Nita, you said it. All these estimates are nothing but ‘hypotheses’. We will never really get the ‘true picture’ on the ground. At the same time, I do feel at least a little bit better when another estimate halves the previous one…
Ah. a fellow skywatcher. And an asterix fan. Bless the blogosphere for enabling this