{"id":374,"date":"2015-07-28T20:42:18","date_gmt":"2015-07-28T18:42:18","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blogs.fu-berlin.de\/mediaanthro\/?page_id=374"},"modified":"2024-05-09T20:22:53","modified_gmt":"2024-05-09T18:22:53","slug":"advertisement-in-india","status":"publish","type":"page","link":"https:\/\/blogs.fu-berlin.de\/mediaanthro\/student-presentations\/advertisement-in-india\/","title":{"rendered":"Advertisement in India"},"content":{"rendered":"

Barbora \u010cern\u00e1kov\u00e1 & Daniel Szab\u00f3<\/strong> <\/span><\/p>\n

India is the second most populous country having over 1 billion inhabitants. Linguistically, it is the most complex country in the world. There are\u00a018 official languages<\/a>\u00a0written in 10 different scripts. However, the advertisement had to go a long way to fully utilize the potential of the country. After the independence from Great Britain in 1947, M. Ghandi called for a boycott of imported goods and this approach of suspicion about foreign goods remained in Indians for following decades. The turning point came in year 1991 when the government liberalized the market and nowadays it is possible to buy almost anything in the country, unfortunately not for everyone. From the whole population there are about 300 million people who represent the middle class that we know from Europe or the United States. For the rest, even the tea or soap are goods of luxury.<\/p>\n

Anthropologist W. Mazzarella (2003) divides advertisement of independent India in 4 phases.\u00a0The first phase<\/strong>\u00a0lasted from the announcement of independence in 1947 until early 1960s. The advertisement lacked creativity and was working more or less like a British outpost. This period was also unique because of 2 ingredients Indian advertisement had \u2013 advertising was perceived as tainted and it was almost only in English language. In\u00a0the second phase<\/strong>\u00a0(until 1980s), which was a reaction to the first one, creativity and Indian individuality independent from Great Britain were emphasized. This stage experienced also another 2 developments. The first one was the emergence of new Indian middle class that was associated with the\u00a0\u201cgreen revolution<\/a>\u201d<\/strong>\u00a0taking place in North India which brought prosperity to a large amount of people there. The second important event was the\u00a0National Readership Survey<\/a><\/strong>\u00a0(NRS) I and II in years 1970 and 1978. These two surveys discovered the potential of rural market that it is worth publishing and advertising not only in English language but also in the rural ones. This meant a landmark for Indian capitalism. The third and fourth phase (from late 1980s until now) focused on effective marketing channels and high level of creativity. The Indian advertising industry grew by almost 25 times between 1976 and 1994. What is interesting is that multinational companies, advertisement and globalization actually helped to vitalize and reinforce local languages and cultures because the advertisement had to be written or produced also in these languages in order to be successful.<\/p>\n

Nowadays the largest contributors to advertising are television and print. The third largest contributor is the Internet. By the 2018 the print should be replaced on the first place by television. The media and entertainment industry in India is expected to 9,6 billion dollars by 2018, while in 2013 it was only 5,6 billion.<\/p>\n

\"Media<\/a><\/p>\n

\"Untitled1\"<\/a><\/p>\n

Kishore Dash<\/a>, a professor of marketing and a specialist on the Indian economy, describes the consumption patterns in contemporary India:<\/p>\n

\u201cSince the mid-1980s, Indian society has undergone a dramatic shift in social values. \u2026Getting rich and enjoying a good life has become the new mantra of social existence for the Indian middle class. With more income and more purchasing power, the status-conscious Indian middle class now seek to buy good quality consumer products and spend more money on food and entertainment\u2026While 70% of Indians are still traditional, poor, and live in rural areas, 30% of Indians (more than 300 million people) have emerged as rich, modern, Western-exposed, English-speaking, urban dwellers.\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n

Use of media in India seems as a perfect spot for understanding the connection between global and local. Media actors and media themself construct this connection in a very meaningful way, because they are actually trying to render the global products accessible to local audience and this way create a special desire for obtaining them.\u00a0As we saw, advertisement in India has been experienced a long development since it got up to this point. The need of\u00a0cultural translation<\/a>\u00a0and the task of the ethnographers to describe the foreign culture are here obviously more than necessary.<\/p>\n

Between the most significant authors dealing with the advertising strategies in India belong\u00a0William Mazzarella<\/a>\u00a0(2003) and\u00a0Niaz Ahmed<\/a>\u00a0(1996). Both of them are focused on the global-local intersection within the creation of the locally accessible advertisement. Between the main questions they pose belong: How advertising reflects cultural values of its target audience? Are consumers\u00a0becoming homogenous? What are the differences and similarities in advertising strategies and expressions?<\/p>\n

Niaz Ahmed uses the expression \u201ceffective localized advertising\u201d, when the ads strategies actually reflect cultural values and norms of its intended audience. At the same time Mazzarella considers the advertisement business as an ideal site, where \u201ccountry-specific symbols\u201d (culturally specific knowledge) encounter the \u201cglobal\u201d and where we can observe the mediation between the role of consumerism and advertising in the development of a local Indian identity (Mazzaerella, 2003).<\/p>\n

For understanding, how this actually work, we will provide 2 examples of successful campaigns, which were able within the global context make certain local contents, icons and images accessible in order to approach local society. These recognized the specific and authentic characteristics of Indian culture and employed them in a various ways.<\/p>\n

India represented a big challenge for McDonald, because it is a country where cows are sacred and McDonald had to adjust to a totally different cultural context. There are Hindus who do not eat meat, Muslims who do not eat pork and a significant part of population doesn\u2019t eat any animal products at all. No surprise that the company spent four years until finally in\u00a01996 McDonald entered the Indian market<\/strong>.<\/p>\n

Despite carefully planned strategy, there were major problems at the beginnings. Even tough they stepped from incorporating beef in their products; the Maharaja Mac with mutton was unappealing to the Indians. Besides that, there was a perception among the people that McDonalds restaurants are too expensive. To change this perception the company created a commercial with a look-alike for\u00a0Bollywood star\u00a0Dev Anand<\/a>\u00a0from 1980s that speaks that prices are from his generation. In this video he appears to be black and white while the surroundings of McDonalds restaurant are shiny and colourful.<\/p>\n

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