Advertising: Getting it right for India
by Anjali Gupta
It’s always a treat to hear Prasoon Joshi share his insights on consumer marketing and advertising. On a recent NDTV show when describing the difference between Hollywood and Bollywood, he explained that Hollywood is all about the “WHAT” while Bollywood is all about the “HOW”. We don’t watch Hindi movies wondering “what is going to happen”; we already know that – the hero will punish the villain and somehow everyone will find a way to live happily ever after! That’s not something we like to doubt. What we really want to know is “how is this going to happen”, how will they meet, will there be a song or a dance along the way?
As I reflected on this, I almost felt our movies are as spiritual as our country. Where life is about the journey and not the destination. Where everything must work out in the end. If it does not, you’re not in India. It is after all God’s own country!
The show anchored by Pranoy Roy also starred other bigwigs of the advertising world – Alyque Padamsee, Piyush Pandey, and Prahlad Kakkar. Alque Padamsee talked about stories from his campaigns over the years; almost all have been covered in detail in his biography A Double Life (I strongly recommend reading this book). Other interesting insights included the importance of vernacular that’s behind the noticeable usage of Hinglish in ad films and tag lines. The panel revealed that a decade ago this was not acceptable and was interpreted as a sign of weakness. In contrast, today’s super confident youth takes pride in mixing the desi with the videshi to get the best of both worlds. Prasoon gave several examples such as his use of the word “pathshala” in the popular Rang De Basanti song; a word that would never appeal to the youth unless they took pride in their Indian identity. After all, advertising is about making the audience dream or reminding them of their dreams. With only 2% of India dreaming in English, the panel unanimously agreed that vernacular is the way to go!
I can’t help but relate some of this to our challenges at BookEazy, as we search for the right words, the right approach that touches the Indian movie-loving heart. The search continues…read: ideas welcome 🙂
How was Prasoon Joshi involved in Rang De Basanti?
I enjoyed the programme as well and thought it was an interesting forum to analyse advertising especailly given the way the economy and the indian society at large is hurtling towards unabashed consumerism.
Santosh- if I am not wrong Prason joshi co wrote the scipt dialouges and the songs for Rang De Basanti.This is another hearting aspect , witnessing the coming together of two popular culture fields that connect with the masses.
Lyricist I believe…. 🙂
I did not see the program, nor am I am Advt. guru. But reading your article it gave me kind of explanation why do we see “Indianization” of our advt. campaigns.
As for BookEasy, I would like to tell you that at times the name confuses some listeners / readers! May be a tag line (punch line) saying, “movie tickets aap ke ghar me” or “ghar baithe movie tickets” will help people decipher what book easy is about. Just a suggestion though, I had to explain one of my friends that book easy has got nothing to do with “BOOKS”, they book tickets and then had to explain him they book movie tickets and not airline or railway tickets, as of now. I was kind of in accord with this dilemma of his as he belongs to the lot of numerous confused ones.
Hi Atul,
Great points… we have been learning as we grow and we have encountered the same anecdotes that you recount here. We “want to” change 🙂 so that we can fit better with our customers.
Market perspective is important, thank you for sharing your feedback.
– Santosh
Thanks Reema. I wrote this post after watching one of the parts of the entire series. I could not catch the next part. Did you happen to catch it?
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