Consumers do learn from ads: Ambi Parameswaran

You are among the few advertising professional who have written books, and this is your eighth. How do you manage to make time for writing?

The writing started in reverse. In 1997-98, I was looking for cases to use for teaching when I discovered they were still using some very old books. Then I started writing some short cases based on brands I’d worked with and . Tata McGraw Hill was interested [in publishing them as a book] so that’s how it started. I wrote cases for teaching, and those became books. Once the books came out, they actually sold, and the publisher stared asking what are you writing next? Then I wrote the second, and the next, and it just continued. Obviously, there was a big lacuna of professionals writing books, in the late 90s. Now there are a lot more people writing, which is good. My first bunch of books was more academic. Then my agent, Anish Chandy, said I need to write for a larger audience and that is how ‘For God Sake’ was born. It was based on my thesis, but it was a light book. And, after I finished writing it, the idea for [the latest] book came up and we started discussing.

How much time did this last book take?

40 years (laughs).

And it’s packed with loads of information…

80,000 words (smiles). The idea for the book happened about two years ago, and it took a year of writing. I was working full time so I used to devote three or four hours every weekend to compile stuff. I did not want to do a history of agencies, but wanted to look at how society has changed. First you have to compile information, and I went through 30-40 books. Also, one had to not just write about different topics but also see if there are any international parallels. So I had to hunt for relevant books on that topic. Fortunately, some of my friends are senior professors, so they helped identify the books I should look at. It took six months of collecting information, and six months of writing.

In the book, there are a fair number of references to influences in society and how it has changed. For instance, you write on ads having helped Indians discover new products and services. Really?

If you ask a consumer ‘did you buy this product because of the ad’, the response will be no, I heard about it from a friend. But where did your friend hear about it? She heard it from her friend. There might be an ad involved. Take the example of Dalda, which was the first Indian product advertised in 14 different languages in print. Each ad was different because it was specific to the cuisine of a particular region. Ads were written in 14 different languages to convince Indians that Dalda was as good as ghee, during the days of a ghee shortage. And it succeeded. Today I saw an ad where they were trying to sell 4G services saying you can use it to locate a loo for your kid. That is education. Advertising is performing the role of disseminating education so consumers do learn from ads. They may not admit it, but they definitely learn a lot.

At the same time, there is a lot of advertising which is possibly instilling values you don’t want, like fairness creams or ads for colas which are not good for health. Advertising can be educational, but there are many brands which don’t sending out positive messages…

I believe if it is legal to sell a product in a country, it should be legal to advertise a product. If it is legal for me to make and sell beer, it should be legal for me to advertise the beer too. If you go back to how this idiocy started in this country, 25 years ago the government suddenly decided that sanitary napkins would not be advertised on TV. They said the ads could only play after 10 pm. Maybe that has caused a problem. Today, one of the biggest issues we have is girls are afraid to go out because of their menstrual cycle. If they had allowed those products to be advertised widely, maybe we would have had more innovative products coming out. But why was it was not allowed before 10pm? Because it was considered a bad, female hygiene thing, which could not be shown on TV. We banned the ads, and now we are saying girls are not going to school, not going to work on those days because of this problem, and now we are regretting it.

Every month, the Advertising Standards Council of India (ASCI) comes out with a list of ads against which complaints have been registered. A fair amount of such advertising shows that not all practitioners are doing their job correctly…

Yes, it is a combination of the agency and the client. Often the agency pushes the limit and the client says okay let’s do the ad and see what happens. I am happy that ASCI has become powerful now because in the good old days, it used to take a month to respond to a complaint. Now they come back to you within a week, whether they uphold the complaint or reject it. The government has also mandated that if some ad complaint is upheld by ASCI, TV channels cannot run that ad. To be fair, every brand owner and agency is trying to claim whatever they can do to the maximum.

In your book you have referred to the Tuff shoes ad, and the case against it that went on for two decades. Do you think the ad was beyond decency? And would it be accepted now?

I do not think it would be accepted. Today we will probably react just as badly to that ad. As a piece of art, it was brilliant and beautifully art directed, and launched an unknown brand in a sensational way. But it got into all sorts of trouble and the court case ran for 20 years…. Today, the complaint would have gone to ASCI, which would have either upheld or rejected it. For all you know, ASCI may have even passed it.

There is a lot in your book about the changing man, woman, child or youth. You have mentioned that the Raymond ad was a milestone in the way it depicted men.

I have been a follower of Raymond advertising for a long time, and for a hot country like India, Raymond made suitings cool. But it moved away from an executive suit to embrace the concept of a complete man. One of the best ads they had was about this man from abroad looking for his friend and discovering that his friend has lost his legs and is in a wheelchair. He takes him to Marine Drive and they are shown having fun, chatting about old times. There is no mention of suits except for the fact that this guy was dressed in suit but carried his jacket in his hand. Suddenly this presented a whole new face to the guy who wears suits -- that he is not an automaton but a guy with a heart. Such ads have redefined suiting advertising.suitings cool. But it moved away from an executive suit to embrace the concept of a complete man. One of the best ads they had was about this man from abroad looking for his friend and discovering that his friend has lost his legs and is in a wheelchair. He takes him to Marine Drive and they are shown having fun, chatting about old times. There is no mention of suits except for the fact that this guy was dressed in suit but carried his jacket in his hand. Suddenly this presented a whole new face to the guy who wears suits -- that he is not an automaton but a guy with a heart. Such ads have redefined suiting advertising.

You have written about men, women, children and teens in ads. Which of these strata do you think have changed the most in terms advertising in the last 15 years?

All of them. May be women more significantly, because earlier, women were never featured in a financial services ad or in motorcycle, scooter or car ad. Like the ads for Hero Pleasure, which is a scooter for women. A lot of car brands are showing the woman driving the car. The biggest change in Indian society has been with respect to women. Their education and desire to work has dramatically changed over the last 20 years. Therefore, the depiction of women in ads has also dramatically changed.

Yet there is a lot of advertising that is not gender-sensitive…

I think there is a need to sensitise people to this. Sometimes you do it even without thinking. Some ads are being created without any deep agenda on pushing down of women. It’s just a lack of awareness.

Do you find that in the last 10 years, effectiveness awards have become very big and that even creativity in advertising tries to earn brownie points from social media and the buzz created?

I do not think so. Advertisers today are looking at two different kinds of advertising. First is the classic way, where you spend a big amount on advertising. The second is the ad which is created for social media. One is the 30-seconder which will run on TV channels, and the other is the three-minuter which will run on YouTube. Today, these two are working on two different agendas, but one day the two will meet.

The book covers about 50 years of advertising, but perhaps some inside stories and gossip would have made it more juicy. You have stayed clear of controversies…

The last chapter is all about the problems advertising has faced. It deals with the Tuff shoes ad, the Kamasutra ad or the problem I had with an innocuous Sweetex commercial, where I was showing the navel of a model, which got into trouble. I have not discussed any gossip, such as who copied whose idea, because that is not the domain. I am writing this book because I hope the young people entering advertising can, in just a few hours of reading, understand how this business works and have a positive impression of the industry.

If you were to pick three, five or 10 ads that have been game-changers, what would they be?

I would say go back in history. The Maharaja ad for Air India is one. The Amul hoardings (which even the client gets to see only after it goes up, shows the kind of trust you need to have with your agency partner), the Lalitaji ad which re-defined and put the middle-class woman in the market. Or ‘Doodh’, which made milk cool. Also, the Cadbury cricket film ….

And Liril?

Yes, Liril was path-breaking. And in recent times, stuff like the Gundappa film for Lifebuoy and the Airtel ‘Hare ek friend zaroori hota hai ad.’ So, there have been quite a few films, Fevicol take a very humble adhesive in to landmark creative, again that is a very good client-agency partnership.

Ads like ‘Doodh’ for Amul that you have worked on at Ulka, which you are extremely proud of?

I am proud of what FCB Ulka has done with Naukri.com – the Hari Sadu ad. I am especially proud of the work done on Tata Indica. Then of course the work we did on Santoor, Sundrop - two brands which took on the might of Levers and succeeded. Some fabulous work we have done on Zee, Zee Cinema especially.

What next?

Well, I do not know. I hope this book does well and serves the purpose of both making people like you and me nostalgic about the past and make young people say these guys actually did some good work and now we need to do better.

In Arrangement with MxMIndia.com