this via @shalombook on twitter.
essentially, the soaps are rating an average of 5.4 TVR, and IPL is rating 5 in the top 4 cities amongst the GE audience. Soaps that cost an average of 6-12 lakhs beating up the country’s largest Reality extravaganza that costs many, many times more …..
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HyperActiveX - came up with that title on a conversatin thread on FB.
And, this was in context of Mr.Advani – the leader of the BJP – who has decided to use the net to reach out to audiences that extensively use the net. (‘younger audiences’ 
In typical desi style, they have gone in for overkill. Have money, will spend – and will appear on every site you visit, at any point of time, with reference to any kind of content – omnipresent…
On Wednesday, i was up at 5. Was supposed to leave for Shirdi at 5.30 – but that has got pushed slightly. So i was catching up with news for the day. And bingo pops up Mr.Advani. at 5 in the morning. I almost choked on the coffee and then i saw the irony of it, and laughed
The omnipresent mr.advani
Somehow the advertising seemed to endorse Varun Gandhi … I am sure that it was not the intention. I am also sure that Mr.Advani and the BJP are fairly embarrassed by this immature and public outburst of what is the hidden philosophy. But that is not the issue. The issue is bad placement. It’s a bit like a Cola Ad appearing after a story on cola damaging the teeth or whatever, or a mobile ad appearing in a cricket match everytime India loses a wicket… it is bad media strategy. Very bad !
It is primarily bad, because it reminds people who are on the fence, the issues that make them uncomfortable with the BJP.
It kind of brought home all the one single reason why i find it difficult to consider the BJP as a party to lead the Government at the centre … despite my acute disenchantment with the Congress. The BJP attracts every psychopathic nutcase – and this kind of rhetoric thrives. Every time a church gets burned, a woman gets beaten up, silliness like purification ceremonies occur at temples because people of ‘lower’ castes have entered it .. check to see the State Government in power .. it is either directly the BJP or a party with BJP support.
There are a whole bunch of very eminent bloggers who have come out to endorse the BJP on account that the Congress has failed to guarantee our security. You know what, i am more scared of marauding hoardes beating me up because I fail to live up to their definition of “Indian Culture” than i am of nutcases planting bombs. Somehow, my main issue with the BJP is internal security, and their ability to hold back their saffron cousins.
And of course, do i really want the trioka of Yashwant Sinha, Jaswant Singh and Arun Shourie handling the economy ?
And finally, the great Indian electorate does not elect a Prime Minister. It elects Members of Parliament. The largest party or the largest coalition nominates its PM candidate. Maybe, it is time that advertisers took their heads out of their colonised butts and realised that, thankfully, we don’t have an American set up for choosing either our representatives or our Leader.
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61 years old. Happy Birthday.
And on this day let me link two ads. one from a time that i was growing up, and the other from now.
Hamara Bajaj – 1989
Hamara Baja – 2006
Bhuland Bharat ki Bhuland Tasveer
Naye Bharat ki Naye Tasveer — who ever wrote those lyrics was a genius !
Ficci Frames 2008 began yesterday in Mumbai. This year's theme was sustaining development.
As, usual it was great for the networking. I caught with quite a few people that I had lost touch with. Met some new ones. Bonded with old colleagues. Drank lots of coffee. attended loads of talks where i felt like a school back bencher … some gems from yesterday…
The panel on the Resurgence of Regional Media was good. At the end of the day, the take away was that Hindi is just another regional language — in the context of audiences and media. That product, social and religious marketeers had begun to understand the power and value of regional audiences and did not disdainfully write them off as 'vernacs'. It was one of the few panels where the panelists had bothered to prepare for the audience that they were addressing.
This year FICCI Frames seems to have gone eco friendly. Instead of printing out 180 odd pages of the media report, they gave a short exec summary that was printed and the rest of it on cd… and unlike previous years the report was not plastic wrapped.
all in all felt like being back at an alumni meet…..
Technorati Tags: Ficci Frames 2008, Mumbai
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There are things that you can live down, and there are things that you can’t. Our esteemed censor board chairperson, Sharmila Tagore’s comment on the XXX Flavoured Condoms ad:
"The campaign is not in good taste"
gives a whole new twist to the phrase "double meaning"
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In another world, another time, this could be a name for a cola variant in MAD magazine. Unfortunately, in our world it is a term that is used to describe colas with large doses of pesticide. Naturally the reaction to it is mixed. The Cola companies are defending their position and rubbishing the CSE report, the opposition is calling for a ban, the health minister says no action needs to be taken, and the general public is confused at all the charges, counter charges, defences and scientific techno bable that is flying around. One very simple solution is to have cola companies print the statutory warning that cigarette packs carry! And maybe, other restrictions on cigarette advertising could also be applied. Flippancy aside, it is sad to see multi national giants, who are supposed to know better, come to India and flout basic rules of health, safety and doing business. There is no point buying airtime by the kilo, and newsprint by the ton to advertise your wares – if you are going to end up slowly poisoning your target group. Corporate Social Irresponsibility any one ?
Technorati Tags: Cola
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I saw an ad yesterday which really struck me dumb. It was for SBI Debit Cards. It paid a backhanded tribute to a number of hindi films. The ad looked like something out of "Do Bigha Zamin". An emaniciated BPL (Below Poverty Line) man doing a variety of heavy tasks. The film is shot in dark hues of earth – that look granulated – increasing the impression of dreariness and hopelessness. The camera follows the man as he goes about his tasks, focusing primarily on his sorry state of life. There are his phate purane chappals. There is him as he tries to drink water from a dry tap – a tribute to Jagte Raho maybe. There is him pulling a laden hand cart. There is him working as a beast of burden carrying up heavy looking sacks up a construction site – a tribute to Nirupa Roy maybe in a Deewar. And finally the camera settles on him eating - devouring some chapattis. And the tagline comes on SBI Debit card – for a cashless society. When the Ad began i honestly thought that it was for the EGS or a PSA on behalf of some NGO or the other. I was zapped when it turned out to be a banking service. I was even more appalled when it was from India’s largest Bank. I was talking about this at work this afternoon – the lack of sensitivity on the part of those who conceptualised and commissioned this when some pointed out that the man was supposed to be a former pick pocket. I missed that bit in the ad. Possibly because – a) it was not prominent, b) the visuals were so stark that i missed everything but the logo at the end. Someone somewhere has a fairly warped sense of humour that they have tried to inject in this ad. In anycase, using such stark poverty to sell a product seems stupid. I am not sure that the average viewer is going to see anything humourous in the ad. I, for one, am not going to be picking up my phone in a hurry to figure out about the service.
Technorati Tags: India, SBI, Advertising
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“men are supposed to be brown and rugged, not fair and pansy” said my politically incorrect mom after viewing the Fair and Handsome ad on TV tonight.
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Society and Culture has always fascinated me. Why do certain people behave in a particular manner? Why do Tamilians do somethings and Punjabis do something else. And this is more from a macro sociological/anthropological/ethnographic perspective than a micro (psychological) viewpoint.
I always used to have words with the sales teams (when I headed channels) on this concept of a “Hindi Speaking Market” or the concept of “South India” or indeed the “North East”. I am not really sure whether you can lump all Punjab, Haryana, UP, MP, Bihar, Rajasthan, Uttaranchal, Chattisgarh, Jharkhand, Delhi, Mumbai, Chandigarh, etal together as one homogenous Hindi Speaking Market. My funda was geographical clusters do not necessarily mean socio cultural clusters. Yes, in the extremely broad view we all eat, sleep, drink, procreate etal. but so do dogs and cats. Yes, also in the extremely close up view, I am very different from the next person in my community. But, i guess technology has not reached a stage where we can accurately target the individual with all her inbuilt peculiarities. So a via media is found. In today’s usage it is Socio Economic Classification (SEC’s). But i honestly believe that the time has come to take it beyond SEC’s and look the impact of ethnicity, language, culture and society on our decision making process.
We know that there is a world of behavioural differnce between people from UP and people from Punjab. We attribute it to socio-cultural differences. Yet, we expect them to view and purchase the same things. And our communication to them – inciting them to do so – is identical. I think, that at a certain level, importing too many management, marketing & research fundaes from the west – which is relatively homogenous – has led to a certain kind of laziness in India. We (those who have something to sell) think in English, and translate that English thought into various Indian languages. I am not really sure that such an approach works anymore. The market has expanded beyond those who exclusively think in English and has gone on to encompass people who think in the vernacular.
But, it is not just about the language – though that does play an important role. Putting out a hoarding that says This ya That may appeal to someone who thinks in English because we are a talking about a fairly binary language which has its roots in a fairly binary culture where good and bad or God and Devil are very clearly defined. If you think in Hindi the translation may make sense but not the essence. Because we are talking about a fairly ambigious culture. The concepts of yes and no may exist, but it is very rarely used. Instead the concept is that of shayaad (maybe). We are talking about a language where yesterday and tomorrow are the same word. And it is not just a peculiarity of the language. It is probably also the mind set.
At the same time it is also about cultural symbolism. “pan indian” culture is a figment of the marketeers imagination. A hope that their life will be made easier in communicating to the diversity that is the Indian Market place. Just because someone in the Chennai or Mumbai adopts Sangeet as part of their marriage ritual, doesn’t mean that it is the norm. It is most likely the exception.
Yes we are all brothers and sisters under the skin. All united by this thingee called “Indianess”. But under the skin does not really determine either purchase or viewing. Other things do. Do i buy more insurance because I want to save tax or I am a Tamil? Does she buy more fair and lovely because she is young or is it because she is Rajasthani? (just examples)Maybe one day the industry will grow up and target specific custom for products and services in a specific manner. Until it does this trend of fairly inefficient communication is going to continue.
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Putting together this weeks’ blog mela was an incredibly rewarding experience. I had a wonderful journey through Indian blogdom. There are almost 50 posts featured here. My thanks to all those who nominated. Without Bloglines this task would have been chaotic:)
I have had a trying last two days. My ISP has been taking turns with my electricity provider to delay the Blogmela. For that my apologies.
The Mela Opens.
Let’s start this week’s mela with a warm and funny letter from chankya at vichaar.org to the people of Pakistan. A sampler
Partition is no problem for us either – we’re like so over that breakup. Moreover, we’re sort of used to having Pakistan as our neighbor too (whom would we play cricket against if it weren’t for you ?). Besides, it would sort of suck to have Afghanistan next door. BTW, we heard Musharraf broke up with Osama ?
Vulturo wonders why there isn’t any response from Pakistani blogdom, and wonders if there is such an entity. There is. Check out KO one of the more popular bloggers from Pakistan, and this – an excellent blog on Mukhtaran Bibi Case – from june last year to now.
And Mukhtaran Bibi is a case that Indian blogdom has been following. Sepia Mutiny has this to say.
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