Depiction of women in Indian advertising

Advertising is the window to the society. It is a story told in a minute. Thus it is not surprising that it reflect what the society’s prevailing views about a particular topic. Let is examine 4 popular advertisements and show you how they depict a woman in the society. 

Bajaj Motorcycle: The first advertisement shows two loving sisters fighting like dogs. They are at each other, they claw, spit fire and have murder in their eyes for the each other. One finally throws the other into the bathroom and locks the door. She takes a helmet and triumphantly leaves the house. Waiting for her is a young man on a Bajaj Motorcycle. She seats herself and is driven into the sunset. The lesson: materialism is everything in life and you can half kill your own sister for a ride on the latest motorcycle.  

CEAT Idiot series: CEAT wanted to highlight the grip of its tyres. It hit upon a funny series. Both the advertisements show women in mundane and inane activities. One of them shows two young ladies involved in shopping. The small child of one of the ladies wanders into the busy traffic. She is almost overrun by a motorcycle only to be saved by a guy with CEAT tyres. The IDIOTS (in this case the women) assail the young man about his driving skills. The voice over says “the streets are filled with idiots……” The young man is shows looking at the women with a bemused jaw  open expression.

The second one shows a lady driver jabbering away with her aunty seated in the rear seat. The driver is overly excited, can’t control herself and cant resist partaking a huge homemade laddu. In her haste to gobble down the laddu, she almost collides into a two wheeler. The two wheeler driver saves himself with a sudden break. The tyre obviously CEAT again. The women are again shown as half-witted bimbos. Is this the real depiction of women drivers or is it the manifestation of deeply rooted stereo types?  

Axe chocolate advertisement: Axe takes the cake (pun intended). The axe advertisements are excessively sexy and too overboard. They show very puny guys suddenly becoming Greek gods with a liberal dosage of axe perfume. The advertisement shows a man covering himself with the chocolate Axe. He turns himself into an axe chocolate man. He becomes an instant sensation. He is adored and women literally take parts of him. The advertisement shows the women biting off his ears, his buttocks and even one of his arms. So women only think of one think is it. Always below the belt! It is funny to a point. After that it becomes blasé. Too predictable and no longer funny. Remember there has to be something in the advertisement hat hugs your heart strings - case in point the recent ICICI Prudential’s – Per Bandhe acche hai advertisement.   

Which is the real Hustler?

Suzuki Motor Corp no idea that the name "Hustler" for its new, boxy mini-car aimed at outdoorsy Japanese customers may cause confusion among English speakers for its association with an adult magazine.

Taking words from foreign dictionaries without checking how they might be received by native speakers has produced countless products with unintentionally unsavory names.

The name Hustler was chosen by Suzuki to conjure the image of agility, as well as invite nostalgia from customers who remembered an off-road motorbike released in 1969 called the Hustler 250.

The Hustler follows a string of other Japan-made cars to confuse speakers of foreign languages, such as Daihatsu Motor Co Ltd's Naked in 2000 and Isuzu Motors Ltd's 1983 Bighorn. Similarly a car named Nova created lot of confusion in Latin American countries as Nova means no go in Spanish.

Spanish speakers were taken aback by Mazda Motor Corp's Laputa, a derogatory word for sex worker, while Mitsubishi Motors Corp sold its Pajero model as the Montero in Spanish-speaking countries as the former is slang for sexual self-pleasure.

A tubular chocolate snack called Collon and an isotonic sports drink named Pocari Sweat, for example, bear unfortunate associations with bodily functions.

While many brand names around the world don't translate across borders - the Iranian washing powder Barf, which means snow in Persian, or a Swedish chocolate bar called Plopp, are very uncomfortable names. So are names like Pantene and Puck which sound dangerously like ladies undergarments and vomit. Many companies often use foreign words for how they sound, with little regard to their original meaning.

This is partly due to foreign words having an exotic ring, much like how Chinese characters are seen by Westerners as poetic or profound choices for tattoos even if the results don't make much sense to native speakers. But many firms often fail to check if a name 'travels' because of historical reasons, marketers say.

Websites like Engrish.com revel in strange uses of English across Asia, including neighboring South Korea's snack maker Lotte Confectionary Co Ltd's Crunky Ball Nude.

 

300,000 readers and still counting

Happy new year to one and all. Good news. Our blog crossed the 300,000 readers mark on the 2nd January 2014. Thanks and wishing for more readers and more feedback.

Unique Sales Promotion Ideas (Anniversaries, Inauguration), Levis, KFC

Man biting dog! In the corporate world one has to surprise the customers at all the time. To celebrate 125 years of its existence Levi's did some thing very unique, they gave away one pair of jeans  for any one coming into the store with a personal ID proof of names like Jean, Jane, Joan or John. All names which sound like Jeans. No doubt this was an expenditure but it created good will for the company. 

Similarly KFC (Kentucky Fried Chicken) gave 50% off for customers who came in with a personal identification of any name starting with the letter 'K' on the day of their outlet’s inauguration in Hyderabad. A great idea! This started off a chain reaction and many availed the offer. The offer was so popular that it got featured in the news papers the next day - a dream for all marketers.  To be featured in the news papers, get credibility and free Publicity.   

Strategies for Extending Maturity stage (PLC) - 1) Find new uses 2) find new users 3) Induce more usage

What happens when the product reaches maturity and the sales start to slow down or go into a decline? Three strategies can be adopted to extend maturity  and increase sales 1) Find new uses 2) find new users 3) Induce more usage

New uses: The classic example is that of Arm & Hammer baking soda.  As demand for baking soda for food preparation began to decline, the product was extensively researched to find new uses.  Some of the new uses found out for baking soda include

Baking soda can be an odor suppressant for use in refrigerators.
Baking soda can be used as a Clog remover in kitchen sinks
Baking Soda can keep milk from getting spoiled in hot weather (useful in a hot and humid country like India)
Sprinkling a little of baking soda in smelly shoes will deodorize them
Making Baking soda into a paste and scrubbing  the walls will make the walls free of scuffs and crayon marks

Baking soda can be used with a facial cleanser for a gentle, yet effective, exfoliant face

Sprinkling  baking soda on carpets will take away unwanted smells

A variation of the above can be to offer better options for existing users.  Some companies, notably Intel, constantly replace their company and product specific PLCs by introducing higher performance, upgraded versions of their core products.  When the 386 chip was eventually copied by competitors, Intel launched the 486.  Price and volume on the 386 were allowed to fall; marketing emphasis was shifted to the 486.  

When the 486 chip was copied, the Pentium was launched, followed by the Pentium II, the Pentium III, and so on.  In other words, Intel constantly cannibalizes its own products (takes sales away from them and lowers profitability) as a strategy for growing their business.

New users: Products may be initially developed and launched in a single market area, (e.g. the U.S).  As the product becomes established in that market, it may be launched in a second geographic market (perhaps Europe), then a third (maybe Latin America or Asia), and so on.  

Each of the local market areas is likely to conform to the typical PLC.  When the local PLC's are aggregated, they form a combined PLC that is both higher and more extended than the original market's PLC.

Another dramatic example that can be given is that of tooth paste. The sales of toothpaste are dropping in the western markets. One strategy could be to introduce tooth paste for pets – a very interesting concept. One caveat – take care that the branding and the company that is selling the pet tooth paste have to be different from the regular tooth paste maker.  Many of the human customers might find it disconcerting to find out that their own brand and their dog’s brand of tooth paste are the same!

Induce more usage: One of my marketing teacher’s had remarked “the soft squeeze” of the tooth paste packaging being best innovation introduced by the tooth paste makers to induce more usage. Similarly is the tactic of slight increasing of the size of the nozzle so that more tooth paste can be dispensed with each usage (unlike other products once the paste comes out it is not possible to put it back into the tube).

Some more things that have been tried out include, having three colors of tooth paste tubes to indicate three times usage (morning, afternoon and evening). It was tried by an Indian company bit it came out as a naught.

Usually the tack of more usage is through advertising. Initially the tooth paste makers said that one time brushing of teeth was enough. Then they said that it has to be two times one on the morning and once in the evening.  Now it is imperative that one has to brush the teeth every time one has solid or liquid food thus ensuring that we clean our teeth at least 5 to 6 times a day. 5 to 6 times a day is almost a week usage of tooth paste (when a person brushes his teeth once a day). That way they can make us use 4 times more tooth paste and laugh their way to the bank.