Why should boys have all the fun?

Today when I was checking my facebook updates, I came across this ad and that made me write this blog after such a long gap. What a biased advertisement it is! I pity the maker’s perception of presenting this concept. 

Apart from the stereotypical ad, we need to closely look at the business model of the company. It clearly states that would be brides need training. What about our bridegrooms? Don’t they need any training?  It closely states about our social structure. And I won't be surprised if the batches are running full. Marriage is such an institution where both partners need to learn and in today's situation where both the partners are working, typical role expectations have changed.

People were commenting on this ad and some of them criticized it. They demanded feminism so that such ads can be stopped. Why do we need feminism? The fact is even men are imprisoned in gender stereotypes. We need a movement for both men and women and by men and women. Women were never in extreme minority to wait for some movement to take place and then act upon it. They were marginalized because they let it happen. Women are in equal numbers. If not superior but they are no less than men. Anyway, that’s not the topic of discussion today. May be I will write on it sometime later.

Coming back to the advertisement, it has used a women master chef as the face that too for her gender than her capabilities. The color used is red (of course for it being the bridal color), the body copy reads “help her prepare it for well” as if she needs help again demeaning her capabilities and yes not to forget the language of the much wanted services of the company.

I feel the ad is totally biased. This could have been handled better. What say?  

Need for studying advertising from communication perspective

Continued from my previous post:

Another important problem with advertising programs is that they are often seen as a specialty programs and not inherently central within the paradigm of the traditional university faculties such as pure sciences, natural sciences, management, commerce or arts. So the question arises here is that in which academic discipline should advertising be taught? Or a separate need of faculty of communication is there within which advertising education must be fitted. In such a case, the purpose of this advertising division must be to:

1.      encourage the study of advertising as an integral part of our communication and marketing system.

2.      encourage the study of advertising as it relates to other institutions in society.

3.      encourage its members to bring to their teaching and research as a conception of the whole of advertising and not just its individual parts.

4.      provide liaison between its members and scholars in other areas who are interested in advertising and its role in society.

5.      stay abreast of current research; recent publications and research grant opportunities through its regular newsletters, conferences and periodicals.

6.      incorporate diversity in curriculum.

7.      maintain consistency in the content and title of such programs.

Charles H. Sandage once humorously explained the early history of advertising in his book, ‘Advertising as a Social Force’, 1998. He wrote:

From these early beginnings what has become recognized as an academic discipline of advertising was born. The father of this child was psychology and the mother, journalism. It might, therefore, be said that advertising education was sired by psychology and damned by journalism ... The child was abandoned by its father at an early age, but business-marketing moved in as a sort of stepfather to share with journalism the task of rearing the child in its formative years. There was some conflict in the family as to how the child should be brought up. One parent thought it should be nurtured on a diet of creativity, while the other recommended a menu closely related and subservient to the marketing aspect of business. Both parents viewed the child as chattel and directed its life toward serving the particular interests of journalism and business.

....to be continued.

The good old days of DD ads

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?

….to be continued.