BENGALURU: Summer has always been the prime season for advertising in India. Schools are closed, and children can be sold sugar in innumerable ways by companies. Summer also brings with it products that can be peddled to a gullible middle class.
The Indian Premier League (IPL) has taken over Indian summers like a hydra-headed monster, with cricketers selling everything from petrol products to glorified betting apps and gutkha products. Much of it is surrogate advertising, and there is nothing subtle about it. For example, if I were to advertise that I am performing a standup show in Bengaluru this weekend, I would connect it to a gutkha product and make it about pride and achievement.
Advertising is a field I feel a personal connection with. I began my career as a teenager and mostly worked in BPO jobs. My first real job was as a copywriter in an ad agency. I found out that I was good with words and could twist them to sell products. But over the years, I have become disillusioned with the industry. As someone who has been in the industry for a while, I have seen the evolution of advertising in India.
Doordarshan ads from the early 90s were a big influence on me. They were all written like mini-plays, with a woman going out to buy a product and getting solid advice from the shopkeeper. Colour TVs had just made an appearance, and the country was dipping its toes gingerly into the capitalist joys of Coca-Cola and Cadbury’s.
The 2000s were in my opinion, the best decade for Indian advertising, with Indian agencies sweeping the awards internationally. The ads tapped into an India that was now confident in its purchasing power. While veterans like Fevicol were still making funny ads, younger ads like the Hutch dog followed you everywhere, and Zoo-zoos entertained us for years! Since television was the only mass medium for advertising, an ad for 3G video conferencing would be followed by an ad for itches and scratches near the base of the kundalini!
Since then, advertising has become rather redundant. TVs, OTTs and mobile apps cater to different classes of the market. Ads on OTTs are all either for fintech services that nobody asked for, or delivery of food/medicines/groceries at your doorstep. And of course, the innumerable sly gutkha ads. Surprisingly, gutkha ads have mushroomed as our country has developed. Economists should do research on the correlation between gutkha companies and India’s GDP.
I miss the time when ads were created to generate a giggle and gently coax you into buying their product. There are no funny ads anymore. They are all smug, self-aware, or tone-deaf. For example, if I were to advertise that I have a show this weekend in Bengaluru, I wouldn’t say it directly, but in a subtle, roundabout manner. Advertising, unfortunately, has dipped in quality. Ads can now be found everywhere - TVs, computers, phones, and tablets. In such times, one needs to think of new ways to advertise. To think out of the box. Like trying to plug a show in a newspaper column! And just like an annoying, unskippable ad on YouTube, allow me to reiterate that I am performing standup comedy shows in Bengaluru this weekend…
(The writer’s views are his own)