5 best Holi ads to see before the Festival of Colours is here

Other than being the Festival of Colours, Holi is also the festival of warmth and love. Similar to Diwali, Holi is known to bring families and friends together across the country. And this year, Holi is being celebrated on March 17 and 18. 

So, to get you in the Holi mood, here are 5 heartfelt advertisements that will convince you to pick up a packet of gulaal and start playing (and they're not all from Surf Excel): 

1. TATA STEEL: POST-COVID HOLI 

Covid-19 has torn families and festivals apart. Losing family members during the pandemic has been painful and their absence hits harder during festival time. This emotion has been perfectly captured in Tata Steel's 2021 Holi ad. 

The ad shows a couple where the wife absolutely does not want to celebrate Holi and when her husband asks why, she says it's because nothing is the same as before. In a heart-wrenching twist, viewers realise that it is her husband who has passed away during Covid-19, which is why she doesn't want to celebrate the festival. 

Then, she realises she needs to move on and places colour on her husband's photograph.

You can watch the ad here: 

2. BANK OF MAHARASHTRA: KUCH SAPNE SACH KARDE 

In 2020, Bank of Maharashtra released their very own Holi advertisment. The ad features a shopkeeper who tells his disabled employee that if he sells an entire bag of gulaal packets, he could have the 20% commission of the sale he had previously asked him for. Happy to hear this, the employee starts trying to sell the packets and ultimately, sells the entire bag to a woman in a car. 

The woman offers him money for which he runs back to the shopkeeper to get change for. But much to his dismay, the woman drives away by the time he returns.

Thinking he lost the entire bag, he sits in the middle of the road in sadness. But to his surprise, the shopkeeper shows up and gives him 30% of the commission instead and explains that the woman had paid him through NetBanking. 

3. FACEBOOK: MORE TOGETHER

Staying away from family and friends on festival season can make you super nostaligic and Facebook's 2020 Holi ad perfectly captures this emotion. The ad features a group of friends in India playing Holi and one of their friends living abroad, not being able to celebrate Holi.

Through Facebook, we see that the group reaches out to people in their friend's town and asks them to celebrate Holi with him. The entire town comes together to make powdered colour to play with him. Check out the ad here: 

4. SURF EXCEL: RANG LAAYE SANG 

Although Surf Excel's 2019 Holi ad caused quite a lot of uproar, this ad may be one of the sweetest ads ever made by the detergent brand. The ad features a Hindu girl riding her bicycle on the road and asking all the children, up on their terraces, to throw colours at her. When the children run out of all the colour they have, she calls a Muslim boy to join her on her bicycle and drops him at a mosque. 

The ad, which was intended to promote communal harmony and friendship between a Hindu girl and a Muslim boy, was instead criticised for being 'Hindu-phobic'. At the time, critics said that the advertisement promoted 'love jihad', and that it communicated that Muslim prayers were more important than the Hindu festival.

5. PARACHUTE: KHULKE KEHELO HOLI 

Parachute's 2016 ad; #KhulkeKheloHoli was able to hit just the right spot. Shot in an old age home, the advertisment started off with a 'daadu' being super-excited about celebrating Holi and hiding his gulaal packets from his partner. Sadly, he doesn't receive the same reception from the youngsters who visit the old age home, which makes him very sad.

In the end, it is his partner who comes to save the day and begins playing a messy Holi, the exact kind daadu wanted. The ad ends with everyone playing the messiest Holi possible and daadu being the happiest. 

Watch the ad here: 

Here's wishing you a rang and love-filled Holi!