Stereo types in Indian Advertising - Part - 2

The matrimonial ads in the leading news papers are also a classic case in point, Red; wheatish, brown, white are some of the brides' complexions mentioned. This has lot to do about our fascination for the fair complexion as the yardstick for an ideal bride. The funniest part is that many foreign tourists who come to India are desperately seeking the tanned look and the Indians are equally desperate to look as fair as the foreigners.

The popular literature shows Jean clad women as of easy virtue and that just by wearing clothes they have become easy to get women. Just visualize the advertisement of trigger Jeans. The Girl very seductively says "Trigger my passion”.

South Indian men and women are also stereotyped. They are depicted as crude, dark and very unintelligent. Just recall the Ortem fan Advertisement. The South Indian says ORTAAMA, and the suave North Indian Punjabi Man says “Ortem” correcting the poor south Indian. The recent Fevi-quick also makes fun of the south Indian. It shows the south Indian successfully cheating at fishing (by baiting fish by using a stick coated with Fevi-quick) much to the annoyance and despair of the honest and hard working North Indian.

This could be the reason why the Male Chauvinistic North Indian cinema audiences have accepted the south Indian heroines (the damsel in distress) but not the south Indian heroes (the role of the knight in shining armor reserved for the virile and fair north Indian males). To ram this point home the makers of the popular TV mega serial Mahabharata depicted Krishna as being fair. But any reader of Indian mythology can easily point out the blunder, Krishna according to the books is NEELA MEGHA SHYAMA (blue in complexion)

Indians are crazy about anything Phoren.  R.K.Laxman nails it on the head with his cartoon which shows  a ophthalmologist saying to a patient "You have a foreign body in your eye, as it is a foreign body would you like to retain it ? ". We Indians are love the label made in....... . This weakness is exploited by the marketers who print labels such as Made as Japan, Made in U.S.A (Ulaas Nagar Sindhi Association). Etc.

It should not be thought, however that Stereotyping is necessarily unhealthy, for it does serve the function of simplifying the complexity of social interaction. It is not possible to relate to each new person as if he were unique, and the formation of a stereotype based on the class or category to which he belongs is inevitable until the experience modifies it or shows it to be incorrect.

Stereotyping can be helpful for it alleviates ambiguity and enables a fairly rapid and easy evaluation of people and objects. On the other hand, it may give too simplistic an evaluation and lead to the formation of prejudices and to discriminatory behavior.

It is thus important to ascertain the national stereotypes or images existing in a particular market. While positive images can be easily be used to advantage, it is far more difficult to overcome negative images.