Soumya Chatterjee

Advertising just like any other profession has evolved over the years. An example of this can be the jacket ad in the Chennai edition of the country’s largest circulated English newspaper, The Times of India.

In this particular instance, a natural calamity which claimed many human lives is incidentally the selling point.

The ad promoting a real estate company which had its headline “FLOOD ALERT” in red claimed how buildings built by Golden Homes Private Limited were not affected by the recent deluge compared to some posh localities of the city that had water even up to the first floor level.

It further informs its audience how the Poonamallee High Road area is better off than most parts of the city owing to its topography and urges them to make an ‘intelligent’ decision. However, this is not the first ad of its kind.

Another ad by L and T boasted of its “meticulous planning and design” to insulate residents from the same tragedy. It had details on how their Eden Park Township campus had been designed studying water flows around the site and natural drainage patterns of the area.

Further it claimed that “road & drains were developed in line with phasing of the project with capacity to move storm water from peripheral areas and from the project catchment” in addition to developing “differential levels and drainage of main access road” to prevent water logging.

The official death toll of the floods was less than 350 but media reports claimed the figure to be well beyond 450. The airport was temporarily shut down, and many people were stranded in their homes without food, water or electricity.

It was also extensively reported how the deluge was partly man made as experts attributed the unplanned urbanisation as a result of an alleged nexus between the civic agency, corporators and developers.