Keep it simple silly…Do we Really?

Ranbir Kapoor’s 'Keep It Simple Silly' ad campaign for a telecom brand hit our television screens like a flood a couple of years back. Along with promoting the product, what the advert did was that it brought back the word simple in common man’s lexicon, a word that had been probably dumped and forgotten by the uber-complicated masses of the 21^st century. The ad has opened up the pandora’s box and the question that confronts us is..Keep it simple silly..Do we Really?

Lets take the example of the advert itself. A superstar enacting a stand-up comedian, trying to make us laugh and sell his product at the same time… Ugh so complex..aint it? Ironically the ad finished with words ‘Keep it simple silly’. Couldn’t the advert just have a simple bulleted description of the salient features? As one delves deeper into it, one would realize that it is nothing but just the sign of times we live in.

From relationships to the simple household chores, today’s world epitomizes complication. The cell phone, possibly the 207^th bone of human body today, was simply meant to facilitate calls, and some even messages. But then came the tech revolution and we suddenly had GPS, 3g, Mp3, Bluetooth, Apps and many more things stacked in a palm sized bar. Even a newspaper that was meant to simply satiate people’s knowledge about events around them has transformed itself into a maze of advertisements, unwanted graphics and, if you’re lucky, you might stumble across some news too! And what about clothing? Perhaps, Adam and Eve were lucky that they had only leaves and grass and not BOAT CUT, FISH CUT, BIAS CUT, ASYMMETRICAL CUT as clothing styles to choose from!

I wouldn’t be exaggerating if I claim that in a bid to simplify the world, we kept on moving in a direction that ultimately led us to this complicated soup. We simply lost our way. AND SO DID I! With an aim to talk simplicity, I started writing this piece. But now I have talked about a superstar actor, his advert and its ironical message and the complexities of the world. AGAIN SIMPLICITY LOST IN A BID TO ASSERT SIMPLICITY. So I would like to rest my case by saying, ala Ranbir…KEEP IT SIMPLE, SILLY!!!!!