 "Pierce Brosnan Pan Bahar advertisement: No one's buying the actor's claims of innocence")
After delighting the Indian public with his James Bond films, Hollywood actor Pierce Brosnan strode onto Indian turf by endorsing a suiting brand. After a considerable gap, the actor was recently seen making a splash with the Pan Bahar advertisement endorsing the brand. At first, people assumed it was a prank but later found that it was true. Incredulous at his appearance in the advertisement, social media went into a tizzy over his choice.
Pierce Brosnan is the new brand ambassador for Pan Bahar. Yes, James Bond wala Pierce Brosnan. I have no joke. Nothing to say. Speechless.
— Hardik Rajgor (@Hardism) October 6, 2016
You know #Brexit was a bad idea when James Bond has to sell pan masala! pic.twitter.com/uJi1jOGLxg
— Neeti Palta (@neetipalta) October 7, 2016
[caption id=“attachment_3064414” align=“alignleft” width=“380”]  File image of Pierce Brosnan. AFP[/caption] What is interesting about the advertisement is that the Irishman endorses the product, but strangely neither opens the box nor is he seen consuming its contents. After the initial jokes at the actor’s expense, a section of the Indian audience castigated him for endorsing a product which has ingredients that can cause cancer. People magazine has reported that the actor is distressed by the deceptive use of his image in the paan masala advertisement, according to PTI. “I would never have entered into an agreement to promote a product in India that is dangerous to one’s health,” Brosnan said in a statement. No one is buying into that I-am-not-to-blame image that the former Bond man is now conveniently trying to portray. Social media is having a ball with hilarious tweets on the actor. Sample these:
I think the real reason Pierce Brosnan is pissed is that he was looking arthritic, old, and ridiculously comical in that Pan Bahar ad
— The Bad Doctor (@DOCTORATLARGE) October 21, 2016
Indian politics favourite politician and the Congress party scion Rahul Gandhi was also brought into the Bond tangle.
Impact Shorts
More ShortsShifting the onus onto the brand and the company is not in keeping with the actor’s Bond image. Really, what was Brosnan thinking when he signed up for the advertisement and predictably pocketed a large sum of money to endorse it? Presumably, the actor who is in retirement took up an opportunity that came his way for the moolah. Brosnan would have been overwhelmed to know that he still commanded attention in far-off India when he is almost in oblivion in Hollywood. However, to now say that he did not know that the product he endorsed was ‘dangerous’ to health is unethical. As adman Prahlad Kakkar says, Brosnan had a moral responsibility to know what he was endorsing. “Obviously he has not heard of the product and not tasted it either. No one would have believed him if he said he had.” This actually makes the actor all the more irresponsible. Perhaps, Brosnan thought he did not have to look into the nitty-gritty of the product or the brand simply because it was not a product for a western market. But his this act is very un-Bond like, to say the least.
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