Trapped into taking a trip

“Tact is the ability to tell someone to go to hell in such a way that they look forward to the trip.” – Winston Churchill

This is what advertising has been doing since its advent in the 18th century and it has been pretty good at it starting from using babies to advertise hospitals to grandparents to advertise medicines. There is an advertisement for every age group in our society. Advertising exerts a major influence on our life. But do we realise this? And is it really needed?

Being commerce students we may justify the fact that Amitabh Bachchan likes Maggi by saying that it brings in more customers and thus increases sales and hence profits. But isn’t social responsibility one of the major concerns of the modern corporate structure as well?

Fooling people

What advertising does is exploit people’s insecurities. Companies turn it into profitable business propositions. Some of the advertisements are targeted towards only a certain set of people. This is where tact comes in.

For example, the Ponds face wash ad relates your ability to win at chess to the fairness of your skin as if strategy and a cool head are in any way related to a girl with Snow White’s face. And all the girls portrayed in these advertisements are typically teenagers with flawless skin – and there you have it, exploiting the insecurity of a girl going through puberty, which incidentally, is perfectly normal. This is degrading to the game as well as the Indian chess genius Vishwanathan Anand. People fail to see this logic and instead are queueing up trying to buy this product.

Let’s not get started on the Set Wet and the Axe Effect. These advertisements objectify women and make meaningless and foolish stereotypes of women always on the prowl looking for a man who has “that” fragrance. Does it really work? Check your answer the next time you see your unsuspecting male friend using the product.

Is there any wonder there are so many rape cases in India when the nation allows such atrocious advertisements to circulate? The advertising of cigarettes and alcohol was banned because of the number of children it influenced. So it stands to follow that these advertisements also affect us in some way.

Then you see the advertisement for women, the Dove-Real beauty campaign. A worldwide marketing campaign to show women are beautiful in themselves and that there is no need to conform to the standards set by the size zero models that romp the ramp. Ahh… Sounds angelic enough??

Clever deception

Just when you think the world is, after all a good place, realisation hits you. Wait! Dove and Axe are marketed by the same company –Unilever. The brand you promised yourself you were going to buy the next time you went shopping just made you realise that appearances can be deceiving.

Makes you rethink business ethics, doesn’t it??

In my opinion you do not need advertisements. In a world with dying resources, consumerist living is not an option. Companies should be able to judge their negative impact on the population and make sensible, sensitive advertisements.

Have you seen ads for The Leela Palace? No, because they aren’t any. But you still know that it is one of the best hotels in Bangalore. Shows you that there is no substitute for hard work and good quality. In addition to that, you get extra TV time!

(Sneha is a Commerce student at Christ Junior College, Bangalore.)

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