After watching a recent TV ad for a small car I fell into a reverie, only to come out wondering if my hunch were true, however deep it might seem. It was this shady impression the advertising industry (in this country, or worldwide?) seemed to have about societies in general. Do these ad makers take us for no-brainers? Have they started believing their ads are shaping societies? Are these ad makers blindly plagiarizing ideas from another society? I am talking about how unnatural ads appear today, and what scum they could be holding beneath.
Picture these - An ad about Chevrolet Spark, or a Tata Nano, or a Maruti Alto never fails to meticulously deal with the family that the car enters into, projecting the car as either the most awaited new-comer in the buyer's family or the one that ushers in a new family. But that's not how an ad of the high-end Chevrolet Cruze, or a Tata Aria, or a Suzuki Kizashi portrays the new car to be. These ads on the other hand try their best at keeping the car and people apart. Business as usual, no time for humans!? It appears the makers of the latter ads have a perception that high-end cars and a warm and closely knit family should not co-exist! The buyer, if at all featured in such ads, comes across as a late-coming boyfriend, or a callous husband & father of a newborn whose aloofness towards the family is held in contrast with the family attachment of the small-car buyer. But to anyone's ghastly surprise that seems to be the very chord of pride these ads are striking their note on.
Figure this too - An airline ad - apparently this man can't sleep without a midnight snack, but his wife denies it, arguably for the good health of her husband. The very next moment in the ad, the same person is sitting wide awake in an airplane, and the air-hostess tosses the person some noodles, much to the guy's pleasant surprise! Superb hospitality, eh? The makers of the ad seem to have paid almost zero attention to the reasons behind a wife's denying of noodles at midnight, and that there's a crisp difference between the hospitality of an air-hostess (representing an airplane company driven by profits) and the uncompromising love of a not-for-profit wife (working only for the welfare of her family). Why do these ads have to pick tiny moments in everyday life, package them to their benefit, and then offer an unnecessary alternative of sorts? What are these ads trying to sell after all? Who are they trying to replace in our societies, and with whom?!
Figure this three! - An ad for men's fairness cream. Talk about painting people black, and then painting them white. Either way, the painter makes money, but people are being polarized as the painted and the unpainted classes. And all this because of wrong, skewed (read creative) and ill interpretations of skin proteins and the differing conditions man lives in. Health implications apart, these ads are definitely not serving any good to our societies as much adversities they could be causing, socially.
Oh, by the way, I also saw a hoarding ad the other day announcing a renowned hospital looking for business development managers! Read the italicised words together again.
Where are all these ads headed?!
With few ads available to comment against these trends, it is readily evident that ads such as these are trying to conquer a weird little spot in our societies. It is shocking to realize that these ads are - hinting societal distancing to be the way to affluence, deciding which skin color to be a better tool towards affluence, offering unnecessary, impractical alternatives to long established social relationships etc. In doing so, are these ads making human learnings from millenia of civilizational living appear zero-sum?
Picture these - An ad about Chevrolet Spark, or a Tata Nano, or a Maruti Alto never fails to meticulously deal with the family that the car enters into, projecting the car as either the most awaited new-comer in the buyer's family or the one that ushers in a new family. But that's not how an ad of the high-end Chevrolet Cruze, or a Tata Aria, or a Suzuki Kizashi portrays the new car to be. These ads on the other hand try their best at keeping the car and people apart. Business as usual, no time for humans!? It appears the makers of the latter ads have a perception that high-end cars and a warm and closely knit family should not co-exist! The buyer, if at all featured in such ads, comes across as a late-coming boyfriend, or a callous husband & father of a newborn whose aloofness towards the family is held in contrast with the family attachment of the small-car buyer. But to anyone's ghastly surprise that seems to be the very chord of pride these ads are striking their note on.
Figure this too - An airline ad - apparently this man can't sleep without a midnight snack, but his wife denies it, arguably for the good health of her husband. The very next moment in the ad, the same person is sitting wide awake in an airplane, and the air-hostess tosses the person some noodles, much to the guy's pleasant surprise! Superb hospitality, eh? The makers of the ad seem to have paid almost zero attention to the reasons behind a wife's denying of noodles at midnight, and that there's a crisp difference between the hospitality of an air-hostess (representing an airplane company driven by profits) and the uncompromising love of a not-for-profit wife (working only for the welfare of her family). Why do these ads have to pick tiny moments in everyday life, package them to their benefit, and then offer an unnecessary alternative of sorts? What are these ads trying to sell after all? Who are they trying to replace in our societies, and with whom?!
Figure this three! - An ad for men's fairness cream. Talk about painting people black, and then painting them white. Either way, the painter makes money, but people are being polarized as the painted and the unpainted classes. And all this because of wrong, skewed (read creative) and ill interpretations of skin proteins and the differing conditions man lives in. Health implications apart, these ads are definitely not serving any good to our societies as much adversities they could be causing, socially.
Oh, by the way, I also saw a hoarding ad the other day announcing a renowned hospital looking for business development managers! Read the italicised words together again.
Where are all these ads headed?!
With few ads available to comment against these trends, it is readily evident that ads such as these are trying to conquer a weird little spot in our societies. It is shocking to realize that these ads are - hinting societal distancing to be the way to affluence, deciding which skin color to be a better tool towards affluence, offering unnecessary, impractical alternatives to long established social relationships etc. In doing so, are these ads making human learnings from millenia of civilizational living appear zero-sum?
Aren't these ads expected to deliver any good (not evil) to our societies at all? Even though there is a body setting advertising standards in India chartered to streamline issues with ads, can we customers lay back without doing our bit? As customers and recipients of these ads why are we letting our social behavior get influenced by such ads? Apart from getting socially programmed, why are we letting these ad makers reign over our needs and convert their projections into our wants? Isn't it time we woke up to realize the boundaries of advertising and their real need, if any? Isn't it time we wrote to makers and sponsors of these ads to mend their methods?
