A young couple sharing a laugh - in the living room over a Polish joke book, on the beach, in the rain - with the tagline, Made for each other , hung from billboards at prominent street corners from the 1960s to the 1990s.
It was a campaign for one of the largest selling cigarette brands in India, Wills (Navy Cut) from the ITC stable, that resonated with a generation of smokers and non-smokers alike till the curtains came down on tobacco advertising in 2004.
As we prepare to welcome 2024, ITC has metamorphosed from a tobacco giant into a conglomerate straddling multiple large-sized businesses. In the mind space of Gen Z or millennials, the company represents a gamut of branded products - from frozen food (ITC Master Chef), noodles (YiPPee!), and cookies (Sunfeast) to snacks (Bingo!) and notebooks (Classmate), and so on and so forth.
Ajit Ninan: A Pioneer Of Political Cartoons, Gone Too Soon outlookindia.com - get the latest breaking news, showbiz & celebrity photos, sport news & rumours, viral videos and top stories from outlookindia.com Daily Mail and Mail on Sunday newspapers.
The tilted hat was my madeleine. The Proustian chain of memories that it triggered took me back to my childhood. It was at a friend’s place where I saw another friend wearing a maroon felt hat, slightly tilted to one side on his bald pate. The style of wearing the hat brought back memories of