“All these ad agencies use sex to sell their products”, argued MR Coffee model Malaika Arora. “What’s wrong in that? And besides, coffee is a stimulant”. Indur Chowdhury of Art Advertising, the agency that had produced the campaign,argued, in a more serious vein, that it had been a matter of strategic positioning. “The human situation of a young couple making love” was used to make “this meaningful difference between filter coffee…and instant coffee…explicit.” Chowdhury also lent an interesting twist to the ongoing equation of political economy and aesthetic politics when he suggested that aggressive attention-grabbing tactics might be counted upon the weapons of the weak. The need for making a striking visual statement was heightened “considering the fact that MR is a small swadeshi brand lacking the financial clout of the multinationals who dominate the instant coffee market.” The Bombay-based managing director of MR Coffee, Rajesh Durgani, added a less elaborated rationale:”Sex ke bina ad mein maja nahin hota hain”[Without sex there’s no fun in making an ad]

Source: Shoveling Smoke: Advertising and Globalization in Contemporary India By William Mazzarell.