First of all I would like to thank all the readers of my previous post and their comments that motivated me to write this one. The earlier blog initiated the issues of masculinity and femininity in advertising. Most of the ad campaigns try to communicate through gender identity. They use stereotyped iconography of masculinity and femininity. It is indeed a tried and tested formula whether successful or not is yet to be found out but going by the rate in which it is used, it certainly appears to be successful not only in ads but also in other means of popular culture. (The dictionary defines masculinity as “something that has qualities traditionally ascribed to men as virile, powerful, strength and boldness” and femininity as “something that has qualities ascribed to women as sensitivity, gentleness, and beauty”)
Let me continue with the same example of Rotomac pens, the earlier ad used a female celebrity Raveena Tondon, a school going kid. Raveena surrounded by her fans giving autograph, her pen is not working and this kid gives his pen to her. The pen is projected as stylish and smooth. The ad projects the product in a more feminine manner with their tagline likhte likhte love ho jaye. The ad used emotional appeal and focused more on product attributes. On the contrary, their recent ad did not use a single female figure; the expressions of all the male characters used in the ad were very robust, hitting and loud. Nowhere in the ad are they talking about their product attributes. The ad simply says one should use the product because it is a tool that gives you power of writing. They have changed their earlier slogan likho script apna apna (write your own script) to likho India ki nayi pehchaan (write India’s new identity) [Watch on: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=njPHq5hhTac).
Rotomac’s TV presence was almost nil in the past few years. Meanwhile other market players entered the market. Linc and Cello managed to capture a decent share in the already cluttered pen market and were quite rigorous in their marketing approach. Linc has been successful in projecting themselves as a corporate into philanthropy. Their slogan says it all ‘encouraging literacy’. And of course few other intelligent (?) marketing moves by using SRK, getting associated with IPL etc. Since, the advent of ads (especially TVC’s) in India our marketers were smart enough to realize the fact that to win over the consumers in the market, they need to cash on consumer’s obsessions which are films and cricket. And thus, one can see spill over of film stars and cricketers used as brand endorsers.
Reynolds, the then market leader who pioneered the writing revolution in Indian pen market uses the slogan ‘the pen the world prefers’. Thus, the later market players preferred to position themselves differently. Montex used the slogan ‘India’s pride’. Linc’s ad (Watch on: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6lAvzLD0IPg) used the tagline gaur se dekho hamare chehre likhi hai aaj inpe India ki nayi kahani (India’s new identity is written now by using these pens) and used SRK as their brand ambassador (Watch on: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-iadZCJrZAI&feature=related). Cello pen’s slogan embarks India connection with pen, it says ‘the pen India trusts’ and used M.S. Dhoni as their brand ambassador (Watch on: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tbEHaf0naZY).
Going by the India connection of pens, when revamping its image Rotomac had to keep a close look at all its competitors move and hence the slogan likho India ki nayi pehchaan.
References:
Feminine. (n.d.). Retrieved 04 27, 2010, from www.dictionary.reference.com: http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/feminine
Masculine. (n.d.). Retrieved 04 27, 2010, from www.dictionary.reference.com: http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/masculine
Zwick, J. E. (2004, March). Mirrors of Masculinity: Representation and Identity in Advertising Images. Consumption, Markets and Culture, Vol. 7, No. 1 , pp. 21–52.
Yesterday I saw one TV ad and was completely smitten by it. Not because the ad was very creative but it took me onto a different trip altogether, the good old days of advertising. As a kid we had that B&W Television set of ‘Uptron’ brand (see you never forget the first things in your life). It was huge, bulky and came with the traditional shutter with the lock and key. My mother used to lock it when she did not want us (me and my brothers) to watch TV (especially during exam time and nobody dared to search or ask for the keys). We used to watch The Jungle Book, Alice in Wonderland, Duck Tales, and Tom & Jerry, Chhayageet and Chitrahaar and…. If by any chance we forgot to switch the idiot box ON, our neighbors TV volume ensured we don’t miss one.
My first rendezvous with the advertisements started at that time though not at all from critical or analytical perspective. Those were the years when we (or to be more precise I) hated those ad breaks in the midst of an interesting program. But TV set sans cable connection enforced ads onto you. Therefore I still remember those ads of Natraj pencil, Cadbury, Lehar Pepsi, Surf (the Lalitaji fame), Lijjat papad, Dabur Hajmola, Bajaj Brahmi Amla Hair oil, Rin Supreme and the list goes on…
And the slogans and jingles which still hum in the back of my mind…Kya swad hai zindgi mein, Vicks ki goli lo kheech kheech dur karo, Buland bharat ki buland tasvir, I love you Rasna, Doodh si safedi Nirma se aayi, and yes how I can I forget the very famous Vicco turmeric nahi cosmetic…Rajkumar Hirani in Fevicol ka majboot jod hai to Deepika Chikhalia’s daam phir bhi kam...
Coming back to the reason why I finally decided to start this blog is the TVC which I had mentioned earlier. It’s the Rotomac pen ad. Writing about the product, the corporation behind it is multi-million dollar turnover company Vikram Kothari Enterprises which launched Rotomac in the year 1992. V.K. Enterprises are not the pioneer in the pen industry.
Let me take you to the brief history of the brand. G. M. Pens International exclusive licensee of Reynolds (originally from France) commenced its India operations in 1986 and pioneered the writing revolution in India (at least from the marketing perspective). G.M. is probably the first company to build a pen as a brand, a product which acted like a commodity market before Reynolds. To beat the monopoly created by Reynolds as a leading brand, Rotomac launched its pen range and positioned itself in the same target audience. I still remember Raveena Tondon endorsing Rotomac with the tagline likhte likhte love ho jaaye (literary meaning fall in love when writing with it) followed by Javed Akhter endorsing their Fighter pen range (kyunki fighter hamesha jeetata hai).
In the past few years Rotomac’s TV presence almost drooped, only to emerge in its new avatar now in their recent TVC. Rotomac changed it’s tagline from likhte likhte love ho jaaye TO likh ke faad denge (literary meaning to tear apart when you write). Over the past two decades Rotomac has positioned itself from a soft feminine brand image to a more masculine one. Do you agree?
