PADAMSEE, THE MAN WHO GAVE INDIA SOME OF ITS BEST TV ADS, DIES
NEW DELHI: In 1982, New Delhi hosted the Asian Games. In a fit of magnanimity, the government decided to allow the import of 50,000 colour television sets to allow at least some people to watch India’s first colour TV broadcast – of the games. The quota was soon forgotten as Indians scrambled to buy colour TVs.
NEW DELHI: In 1982, New Delhi hosted the Asian Games. In a fit of magnanimity, the government decided to allow the import of 50,000 colour television sets to allow at least some people to watch India’s first colour TV broadcast – of the games. The quota was soon forgotten as Indians scrambled to buy colour TVs.
In 1984, Lalitaji made her appearance on TV, pushing the merits of Surf detergent. The iconic ad was created by Lintas, headed then by Alyque Padamsee. In 1985, the iconic Liril girl (the first one was Karen Lunel; the ad made waves in cinemas when it was launched in 1975) made the transition to TV. The agency was again Padamsee’s Lintas.
In one of those years, 1984, or 1985, Cherry Blossom’s Charlie Chaplin imitator captured the imagination of TV audiences when the first ad was aired on TV. He was as funny as the original, people said. The agency? Lintas.
Cut to 1989, and arguably the most popular ad on TV was Hamara Bajaj, featuring warm feel-good vignettes of ordinary lives across India set to a hummable score. The man behind the ad was, again, Padamsee.
Alyque Padamsee passed on to what he himself may have described as the great gig in the sky (apologies to Richard Wright) on the morning of Saturday, 17 November, after an illness.