This is my personal appeal to multinational companies that post print and TV advertisements which involve young children. Often the products that are endorsed by very young children, are not appropriate for their age group. Five to fifteen year olds, are used to promote cars, hair dyes, fabric soap and sugar supplements.
School students are portrayed in a very 'smart alecky' type of attitude. Students, donning school uniforms, that too in a school environment, are shown insulting teachers. The 'Colgate zig zag brush' advertisement that shows a student admonishing his teacher during a parent-teacher meeting, with "teacher, kal raat aapneh palak kee bhaji khayee theeh." Although the company has been made aware of the insensitivity of this ad, they continue to air it. This TV ad is in very bad taste, and it makes the younger generation saucy. What makes me angry, is that, the 'student' is shown with four to five inch long hair. Every school that I know of, insists that boys must have a short haircut, yet role models like these encourage long hair for the male students.
Here is a list of multinational companies that feature school going students and show the male students with four to six inches of long hair. This amounts to surrogate reinforcement that school boys look good or best in longer hair. Unfortunately, it makes the task of school authorities more difficult to maintain discipline of a neat short haircut for boys.
1) Pepsodent - toothpaste badal bachoo - 2 boys with 4 inch long hair in school uniform, with two girls.
2) Vanish - Bunty, a school boy with 5 inch long hair, and 'ink kaa daag'.
3) Lifebuoy - boy with unkempt hair.
4) Aquaguard - 'Rohan, tumhaareh plant meh pharak dikhtaa hai' and the school boy with the longest hair in the class portrayed, answers, 'maineh healthy paani diyah hai.'
5) Dettol - Dettol kah dulhah. a boy student in school uniform is shown, washing a cycle.
6) Bournvita biscuits - a school boy with 3 inch long hair saying 'healthy tasty'.
7) Hershey's milk - a young school boy with longish hair.
8) Mom's Magic biscuit
9) Usha air coolers
10)Mahindra SUV
11)Patanjali fresh fruit juice - 8 year old boy with 6 inch long hair, somersaults.
12)Colours channel - A new serial 'mard kah naya roop' a young boy with 6 inch long hair.
13)Nihar hair oil - shows school boys and girls in school uniform, the boys all have long hair.
14)Patanjali rice - patanjali rice, sahseh nice. This ad shows school boys with 5 inch long hair and Shilpa Shetty.
15)Tide - It show the 'captain' banner on a young male student with a very white uniform and about 4 inch long hair.
16)Suthol talcum powder - a school boy with 6 inch long hair is shown.
Of course, the lengths of hair that I have mentioned are just approximations that I have visually measured. But students with this length of hair would be sent back home from school, unless special permission has been taken for being part of ads. So it is a very unfair tactic that multinationals use, by endorsing long hair for male school students. Not only students but even parents get influenced by these ads and want to see their own sons look 'good', and so are very reluctant to maintain their school going boys' hair at a short length. It is also natural that balding fathers too dote on their progeny's lush hair growth.
It is very contradictory that even the school that I work for, which strictly enforces the 'short haircut' policy for all male students, felicitated a young boy, with quite long hair, as a chief guest, at a recent interschool programme. It may be that that boy is home schooled and can maintain his hair length without rebuke from 'school authorities', but what sort of role model did this portray? I recall how my son had taken great care to lengthen his locks during college days. Shampoos, conditioners, straighteners, hair gels, filled up the bathroom shelf. And then, he had to get a very very short haircut, as a hotel management student, which continues, now that he is a chef,
So, schools should counter the surrogate reinforcement of ads, that endorse longish hair for school boys, by spreading awareness of the 'why not' in this matter. If anything, it would save a lot of daily heartache for teachers, who end up being the 'devils' in the bargain.
School students are portrayed in a very 'smart alecky' type of attitude. Students, donning school uniforms, that too in a school environment, are shown insulting teachers. The 'Colgate zig zag brush' advertisement that shows a student admonishing his teacher during a parent-teacher meeting, with "teacher, kal raat aapneh palak kee bhaji khayee theeh." Although the company has been made aware of the insensitivity of this ad, they continue to air it. This TV ad is in very bad taste, and it makes the younger generation saucy. What makes me angry, is that, the 'student' is shown with four to five inch long hair. Every school that I know of, insists that boys must have a short haircut, yet role models like these encourage long hair for the male students.
Here is a list of multinational companies that feature school going students and show the male students with four to six inches of long hair. This amounts to surrogate reinforcement that school boys look good or best in longer hair. Unfortunately, it makes the task of school authorities more difficult to maintain discipline of a neat short haircut for boys.
1) Pepsodent - toothpaste badal bachoo - 2 boys with 4 inch long hair in school uniform, with two girls.
2) Vanish - Bunty, a school boy with 5 inch long hair, and 'ink kaa daag'.
3) Lifebuoy - boy with unkempt hair.
4) Aquaguard - 'Rohan, tumhaareh plant meh pharak dikhtaa hai' and the school boy with the longest hair in the class portrayed, answers, 'maineh healthy paani diyah hai.'
5) Dettol - Dettol kah dulhah. a boy student in school uniform is shown, washing a cycle.
6) Bournvita biscuits - a school boy with 3 inch long hair saying 'healthy tasty'.
7) Hershey's milk - a young school boy with longish hair.
8) Mom's Magic biscuit
9) Usha air coolers
10)Mahindra SUV
11)Patanjali fresh fruit juice - 8 year old boy with 6 inch long hair, somersaults.
12)Colours channel - A new serial 'mard kah naya roop' a young boy with 6 inch long hair.
13)Nihar hair oil - shows school boys and girls in school uniform, the boys all have long hair.
14)Patanjali rice - patanjali rice, sahseh nice. This ad shows school boys with 5 inch long hair and Shilpa Shetty.
15)Tide - It show the 'captain' banner on a young male student with a very white uniform and about 4 inch long hair.
16)Suthol talcum powder - a school boy with 6 inch long hair is shown.
Of course, the lengths of hair that I have mentioned are just approximations that I have visually measured. But students with this length of hair would be sent back home from school, unless special permission has been taken for being part of ads. So it is a very unfair tactic that multinationals use, by endorsing long hair for male school students. Not only students but even parents get influenced by these ads and want to see their own sons look 'good', and so are very reluctant to maintain their school going boys' hair at a short length. It is also natural that balding fathers too dote on their progeny's lush hair growth.
It is very contradictory that even the school that I work for, which strictly enforces the 'short haircut' policy for all male students, felicitated a young boy, with quite long hair, as a chief guest, at a recent interschool programme. It may be that that boy is home schooled and can maintain his hair length without rebuke from 'school authorities', but what sort of role model did this portray? I recall how my son had taken great care to lengthen his locks during college days. Shampoos, conditioners, straighteners, hair gels, filled up the bathroom shelf. And then, he had to get a very very short haircut, as a hotel management student, which continues, now that he is a chef,
So, schools should counter the surrogate reinforcement of ads, that endorse longish hair for school boys, by spreading awareness of the 'why not' in this matter. If anything, it would save a lot of daily heartache for teachers, who end up being the 'devils' in the bargain.
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