Advertising today, the cutting edge of martech
S.Ganesh, INN/Chennai, @Infodeaofficial
Advertising plays a powerful role in the culture of any society as it creates lifestyles and cultural values. The advertisement for prestige pressure cooker says that hose who like their wives will like prestige Wills Life Styles for Wills Flake Kings promotes sports and music concerts sometime ago when cigarette advertisement was allowed. Kalyan jewelers feature Prabhu whose father Sivaji nurtured family values in yesteryear Tamil movies. This sort of orientation is prevalent in advertisements as America had Michael Jackson singing for Pepsi the choice of the new generation. Actor Vijay is portrayed in Coke and Jos Alukkas advertisements and Ajith in Nescafe advertisement. Jothika is seen in Colgate toothpaste where she says the paste is made of minerals said well in Vedas and Science.
Advertising promotes values and culture in every society and every part of the world including eastern ones like Russia. The strong cultural orientation is prevalent in advertising and it reflects cultures or societies and if you want to do business in any society your advertisement is to integrate with that particular culture. Transnational advertising across cultures promote the societies or cultures where a company is to do business. However universal trends are prevalent as minority castes and gender orientation are still here as well as everywhere.
Advertising is in need in all societies but governments don’t prefer to advertise as in some cases but actor Vidya Balan is featured in Swaach Bharat advertisement of building toilets in every home and during the 1980s the AIDS campaign was prevalent and government used to advertise that. Even Kamalhasan was featured in hoarding of TANSACS saying ending discrimination against AIDS patients. African countries might have advertised on Ebola outbreak and in America advertising is advanced as it includes all groups. Frequently controversies arise as once Eggs used Lord Ram and controversy came about in India on account of that.
There has been a concern of portrayal of women in advertisements but it is in tune to contemporary community standards and once cigarette promotion was done using women by Gold Flake and it was discontinued. The social situation in every country takes a turn as one section of society in India or USA boycotts some color or caste on account of said injustice and modernity goes through phases from mild to strong in societies. The move to include educated ones among film stars is a constant demand as past movie stars were not educated or such and this results in productivity also.
Even in America which is said to be Anglo American on the libertarian tradition of media sexual promiscuity takes hit occasionally as during Trump nomination the Playboy mens magazine met with resistant and people want it to be closed. Even the super star actor Suriya takes blow on account of some social factors in his movie career and his brother Karthi is more popular with some. Looking fair is not the reason to enter movies as even good looking Nizhalgal Ravi has to suffer and dark-complexioned actors do well in Tamil or other regional cinema.
The advertising scenario is changing also as more middle class and poor people are catered to also. The advertising community in Mumbai is conscious that products are made for families and people with family values and are strict on providing jobs to those without in advertising. This is seen in several cases especially as advertising doesn’t employ all wrong ones but also right ones as well. It may be creative but the stress in jobs are minimized and Piyush Pandey a renowned creative Director and Sam Balsara dominate the advertising scenario.
