Would tomorrow 4.30 in the afternoon be a convenient time, a colleague asked. Sorry, I am leaving early tomorrow to catch Mangal Pandey, I said.

He smiled and said he had seen it already. He went on to explain to me how unappetising the movie was. ?It is nowhere near Lagaan. Lagaan touched your heart, raised your nationalistic feeling. Here, history has been distorted. Just imagine, they have shown hills in Barrackpore.? He was furious.

I had heard all this already from many well-wishers. Strangely, the negative word-of-mouth created a resolve in my mind to watch the movie. Indeed, I felt that the movie may not be worth a watch but may still be worthy of a debate. And I wanted to be a knowledgeable participant in such debates. Fortunately, my wife agreed.

So there I was in the cinema hall along with wife, popcorn and 7-Up. For the record, I sat through the movie. I enjoyed Rani?s performance immensely. I appreciated Ketan Mehta. The grandeur of the battle scenes impressed me. I said to myself ? this is no less than what the best of Hollywood offers. I am no expert on free-style wrestling but to my untrained eyes, the manoeuvres looked very realistic. I realised that those involved have gone through a lot of pain to produce such credible performances.

Finally, there was this whole episode of cartridges with the controversial animal grease. Strangely, what worried me most about them was not the grease but the time it took to tear the cartridge, put the ammunition in the gun and then shove it into the barrel with an iron rod. I kept wondering whether the soldier would be shot dead before he fires his next shot. As you can see, I was engrossed and it would be difficult for me to deny that I enjoyed the movie.

This surprised me. What was the matter? What happened to all that I had heard before? Maybe that is why I liked it so much. You must have heard about this riddle. How can you make a line shorter without touching it? The answer is to draw a longer line next to it. What may not have been told to you is that the reverse is equally true. You can make a line look bigger by drawing a shorter line next to it. That may be the explanation.

What if this was used as an advertising strategy for a brand? Advertising in general tends to oversell. It sees its role as the agent, with a duty to create a positive perception about the brand. The ground rule is ? more positive it is, better it is. The issue is whether the opposite strategy deserves a consideration.

Say, the pre-launch advertising for a brand was to follow a strategy of deliberately underselling the brand. I hasten to admit that this is a dangerous ploy. As such, in the best of times advertising is seen as communication with a motive. So any underplay of brand qualities by it might translate into a feeling in the consumer mind that if the advertised message is so modest then the reality must be much worse. It might kill any intention the consumer may have had of giving the brand a fair trial. It is a very delicate balance. It has to be alluring enough to generate trial. Yet, it must promise less than what the brand can actually deliver. That can indeed be a very clever recipe for success.

By drawing a shorter than real line, a pre-launch advertising campaign can make the brand look bigger than it is. The brand experience can then become a very pleasant surprise. This is exactly what happened to me while watching Mangal Pandey. Any takers?