Surely You're Joking, Mr. Jatua!!

Mr. Jatua, the Minister of state for Information and Broadcasting, said that he was aware that quite a few of the present day ads in India are "deceptive"; e.g. fairness cream ads, and that they would be dealt with, under stipulations of the 'Cable TV Networks (Regulation) Act 1995', whenever issues were raised. Well, have we seen the Advertising Standards Council of India (“ASCI”) terms of regulation on ads? AMBIGUITY is the keyword. The job of the ad guy is to make a cute ad, just ensure it's saleable in the market at which the ad/product per se is targeted, and relish the ecstasy of success. NO RULES in the ad world here ;)

As long back as in 1928, Braithwaite (wrote that the primary motive behind a producer’s advertising decision is that advertising has the potential to concentrate demand upon the sponsored brand and hence provide the corresponding producers with increased monopoly power in the market; in simple English....the ad should be able to ease the product in to the market. The Economists Advisory Group (1967) and Batra, Myers, and Aaker (1996) referred to this potential in advertising as persuasion. Since we can't go about coaxing the potential buyer into purchasing the product we have to hit the right chord in their head, so that they feel the need for the product, while also believing that this one's the best bet for them. When the market is flooded with umpteen no. of look-alikes, what does the poor ad guy do? Spend the bucks and say "ME TOO"? Well?
Hmm....so they go about deceiving in some way or the other. Remember the funny Fairglo ad? "Yeh hai Mr. Kale, Mrs. Kale" (well Kale is a Maharashtrian surname, and PUN INTENDED, it also means black in Hindi, the language in which the ad spoke); and then we are introduced to Ms. Gore, the FAIR young daughter of the Kale couple, who apparently got bleached?? into a fair shade by a Fairglo soap. Somehow the ad was funny, the creative team managed to make the characters look thus. Well, the ad was ordered to be discontinued by the ASCI, under recommendations of the Consumer Complaints Council (CCC) that it was discriminatory and offensive. But well, all the other fairness creams work the same way.....they break just as many rules that the ASCI and the Cable TV Networks (Regulation) Act 1995 flaunt and which Mr. Jatua swears by. However, I understand, since no one has raised the issue yet ...they won't regulate the ads or their resp. contents.

Arererere..... Shahrukh bhai.......Aap bhi??

The recent ad wars between Horlicks and Complan also break the rules...BIG TIME. They are hugely deceptive, and to a more vulnerable clan of consumers. Well, the Coke & Pepsi ads can get away under terms of being ambiguous in naming the brands they were fighting. However, the issue here is not about taming ads and stripping them down to the boring product-detail levels....Yawn!!...but at least remove these pretentious stipulations when they are never conformed to.