Why Indian advertising fails to create a ‘Badhai Ho’ , the LCD vs HCF factor
I finally saw ‘Badhai Ho’ and was impressed by the movie. What a fun, progressive way to give a social message and make decent money.
Flashback: A few months back I was consulting for a beauty brand where I had pitched a campaign for the often ignored demographic 55+.Celebrating them as individuals who also like to look nice, dress well and don’t forget that they are able individuals whose beauty hasn’t gone just because they are older and are someone’s parents. Their maturity and wisdom give them a different kind of dignity which is to be appreciated and we as a brand do.
The idea was shot down by the client ”will not be accepted by Indian sensibilities “.
Interestingly a movie on the same topic which event went beyond was just not accepted but made a significant profit too.
I so wanted to send them tickets to “Badhai Ho” along with the box-office results and my pitch presentation ☺
But this is not really about one client turning down someone’s idea.
It’s typical of a trend I see in advertising in India.
Despite our many many awards and lists, conferences and round table discussions & even though we have perhaps the highest number of people who consume advertising & the highest producer of ads across platforms in terms of the number of ads- we still win only a small number in international platforms like Cannes.
In that too if you leave out the social cause awareness campaigns, our bread and butter to bring home some metal, the proportion is much smaller.
We are smart, creative people. So why?
This is one significant difference I feel between Bollywood and Indian advertising.
Advertising here has typically responded to what people desire, using it as an excuse for sexism (“women in bikinis sell stuff”) to unnatural standards ( “people want perfect looking models” ) & irrational fandom ( “celebrities help sell stuff even when it’s obvious they never use the product” )
As an example, I remember an ideation meet in an agency I used to work for- we were stuck for an idea and had a tight deadline. I remember the CD saying “let’s just put a model in a bikini and hire a celebrity with some catchy copy”. Several people laughed despite the blatant sexism.
But going beyond the obvious crassness of the idea, the challenge is we believe in catering to the consumer’s basest desires giving the excuse “That’s what the consumer wants. This is what he or she really is.” As a result many a time generalizing them to their worst stereotypes.
Remember the Zomato ad:
Bollywood suffers from the same issues many times playing on our basest instincts — item numbers, gender stereotypes etc.
But sometimes it gives socially impactful & profitable gems like ‘Badhai Ho’, ‘ Taare Zameen par’ ,’Nill batte Sannata ‘ or ‘3 idiots’.
The difference from adland is because of two significant changes in approach :
1. Given the individual led creative nature of Bollywood vs a creative call taken by a committee in advertising, the former ends up being bolder. In a group decision, you are catering to something acceptable to all.
The lowest common denominator, not the highest common factor.
2. But more importantly, we typically respond to consumer’s needs and are rarely brave enough to focus on their aspirations. What could be meaningful to them,their real challenges & what makes them happy.
And sometimes when we do we make amazing, Cannes winning work like this:
from the same company who had made this:
And yes next time the ‘woke’ adland wonders — did Indian advertising objectify? Yes! And we celebrated it until the world told us better.
We used a sultry Aishwarya Rai and the word ‘baby’ in an actual ad.
Yet things are now changing. Too slowly but are improving.
But an answer to this question — “can we be bold enough to cater to the highest factor vs the lowest common denominator?“ .Could lead to a different world of advertising in India.
The brand icons like Steve Jobs and Henry Ford did that, and their brands did reasonably well :-)
