How have advertising campaigns in India changed over the years?

Communications strategy consultant Karthik Srinivasan tracks contemporary advertising in India in a dogged, dedicated manner in search of the ‘sparkling idea’

A self-described “dense commentary on social media, PR, marketing, advertising and branding,” Karthik Srinivasan’s blog (and Instagram and Twitter handles) Beast of Traal (@beastoftraal) is a great place to follow advertising campaigns in India and, at times, the world. Named after the beast Ravenous Bugblatter Beast of Traal in The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy–which Srinivasan declares is the most definitive guide of our times–his blog comprises tributes to writer Douglas Adams.

In 2019, Srinivasan published his book, Be Social: Building Brand YOU Online which was a natural extension to his work, given his prolific nature on social media and his experiences in the communications field. A believer in short but effective communication, Srinivasan also reviews music in biteable capsules of 100 words.

Passionate about newspapers, Srinivasan tracks publications across languages every morning and blogs his views on advertising. His views are all-encompassing, whether it’s calling out a brand for being misogynistic or praising the underlying humour of an advertisement.

The Established spoke to Srinivasan about the compelling world of communications and advertising to ask him why (and how on earth!) he read over 25 publications every morning. Edited excerpts from an interview.

Why did you start tracking advertising?

I've been blogging since the late ’90s. I began by creating a website which tracks music plagiarism in India. I used to upload audio files in real audio formats because that’s what was available back then [chuckles]. Then I started a music review blog, because [although I] completely lack any training in music, I was interested in finding out what's good to hear every week. It's very difficult to find good new music, and good is really subjective.

I began to write music reviews in just a hundred words, and they were completely language-agnostic. I make a playlist which includes Hindi, Tamil, Telugu, Malayalam, Marathi, Kannada and Punjabi songs. I listen to about 100-200 songs every week, pick what appeals to me and write a very [non-technical] review.

I thought I should extend [the same] to my profession. So I started this blog about all things communication about a decade ago–it's not solely about advertising; I'm looking at everything. Who talks, who listens? Why do they listen? Why are they talking in a particular way whether through advertising or PR or corporate communications?

How do you track so many different languages and how many newspapers you read in a day?

About 25 newspapers, including those in Hindi, Tamil and, to some extent, Malayalam, which I can't read but I look at the ads and headlines. I generally skim through the papers. Most of us only skim through one newspaper, say a Times of India or a Hindustan Times. I skim through multiple, and it's far easier when it's a PDF online. Reading the newspapers is tremendously helpful in my work because I'm able to connect the dots.

It helps that I enjoy this process of skimming newspapers. I honestly feel newspapers are of enormous value; it’s sad that people have lost touch with them. I love going through newspapers, even if it's a slow news day. I always find something interesting. It could be the ads or a small piece of news, or a nice photo, which somehow unfortunately gets missed.

In recent times, which brand do you feel has done a fabulous job with their communication campaign?

The most recent one would be Dunzo, which has been doingreally good work, and I say this from a localisation point of view. To some extent, they sought inspiration from Zomato which [has used] advertising in a way that doesn’t alienate the locals, no matter which region they have launched in. There is a nice blend between languages; they don't use pure regional language, but they use regional languages along with English as well as a colloquial kind of framing so that it attracts attention, whether in print or on TV.

If you have noticed, all those front-page ads with the snakes-and-ladders game include names of local areas and local spots [in the city] that one can visit and potentially order from. While they've done a very good job, they have also had terrible mishaps like the ‘fridge is dead’ campaign.

Do you feel there has been a huge shift in advertising? Which is a company that you feel has done well traditionally and what is the change you see in this year?

Historically, several companies have done well. For example, Cadbury's/Mondelez has done a lot of good work and much of it is by Ogilvy because they have an ongoing partnership.

Globally, I like the work from McDonald's. I'm not a big fan of Burger King, constantly trolling McDonald's despite the fact that they are so small as compared to McDonald's. They keep chipping at the leader, saying, ‘Please listen to me, please hear me, look at me’.

There are two major shifts. One is the assumption that there are only two languages in advertising in India–English and Hindi. The latter used to be considered the default regional language across states. The assumption was that Hindi would be understood by people in Chennai. But the point is that advertising is not about comprehension or understanding or just passing information from A to B. It’s about persuasion.

You need to persuade people to perform a call to action or think of a brand in a positive way. If you start with using a language they don't care for and might be against for political reasons, you are actually starting on the wrong foot. At one point, brands used to assume that spelling out a Hindi word in English text to the Roman text is equal to addressing the issue of regional languages, which is even funnier. If you're going to do that, why not write Tamil? But that involves money, takes more translators. If you use more diligence and more time, each insert would call for a different cost because they are different ads from a pan-Indian point of view. This, I think, has changed.

If you notice pan-Indian advertising today, they are cognisant that Hindi is not just one language [to communicate in] across India. There are more languages to appreciate and use, and it’s not a big effort either. There are smaller agencies which will help you with the regionalisation. So that's a big change.

The other change is the fact that earlier we used to be interrupted with advertising. You can't play or pause ads on television. You have to just sit through the ads or you go to the loo and come back to watch. But you don't know what you will miss so you'd rather sit through the ads. That was the case. Now it's no longer a question of interruption. When you sit to view an ad on YouTube, you can simply press ‘skip ad’ if the first five seconds do not intrigue you.

Ignoring a print ad is far easier. If you don’t like it, just turn the page and you’ll forget it, but if it attracts attention in the first few seconds, the job is done.

Today, advertising has to work doubly more than for the previous generations because we don't take them for granted saying, ‘Here sit through them all’. We gravitate towards advertising that people like, or we like, and what people are sharing online on social media.

Which ads get ‘the idea,’ according to you?

In terms of the ratio between ads that you are indifferent towards and the ads that you like do remain the same, if you have 100 ads, only about 10-15 have a really good idea.

Or it could be something very functional because all ads need not be highly creative. Seventy per cent of the ads can be functional and purely transactional in nature. But we gravitate towards ads and don't share 70 per cent of the ads online. It has to attract our attention more than being functionally useful. You will perform the call to action which is still useful to the brand. But if it attracts attention, it becomes a talking point worth discussing online. Since the online world is not bound by geography, the ad can go places.

Is there any campaign that's true to this?

The Dixcy Scott ad starring actor Rahul Dev is a very interesting ad even within the men's innerwear segment, which is really a morass of crappy ads. This ad does not feature any women at all, which is a big deal. They put a nice spin to it, saying if a man is wearing uncomfortable underwear, he will have poor body language, which is very true. They used Dev as the model and a body language translator in a few different situations where a man being interviewed by another is squirming (think job interview, marriage proposal). It’s Dev who is the cool, reassuring one even though just attired in his underwear. The ad has an impact.

The ad is a much better framing of the same subject when compared to Rupa, which had a campaign at the same time featuring actor Varun Dhawan, a more expensive model. Again, there were no women present, which is an attraction but it actually lent a positive spin, saying that if a man is wearing comfortable underwear, he will seem happy. This was not as interesting as when you turn the framing around, which is what I'm talking about from a communication perspective.

Another example is an ad from Jaquar which ran during the IPL. When I say Jaquar, you would think of pipe fittings and bathrooms. But they also have electric fittings including fans, light bulbs and so on, and they’ve been trying to advertise those fittings for five years, quite unsuccessfully.

They even got Deepika Padukone to launch them. But this year, they had a phenomenal campaign where a guy walking around a corridor sees some work going on in the house and inquires what’s going on. And the response is, “Jaquar fix kar rahe hai’. He then starts imagining people sitting in the hall, with a shower handle or in the loo, wondering what's going on. The other chap understands the quizzical look on his face and tells him these are light fittings from Jaquar. The ad took the brand’s image head-on without trying to shy away from it. That was brilliant.

Is there any ad that strikes you as clever as the Fevicol ads?

There was a recent ad from the scooter brand Ather. If you look at the electrical two-wheeler segment, it's going through a shitstorm. Currently it's going up in flames, and Ola’s sales have come down.

The one brand which has not been affected is Ather. They actually went to the market with an offensive against all the other brands [in the segment] which are going up in flames and they did it in style.They didn’t just say, our scooters are safe, our batteries are safe. They took an Ather battery, put it in an industrial oven on very high heat. The battery is in flames, it's burning away, and there is a chap sitting on top and eating ice cream. This is style. This is intelligence because they are making a point saying we know what we are doing, and that the battery is completely safe.