By: Geeta Rao on 1st May 2012
From biscuit makers to life insurance to mining companies, brands are determined to make fortunes by faking the language of happiness
IN A SIMPLER advertising world, less obfuscated by political correctness and social posturing, happiness was a cigar called Hamlet. The communication had an algebraic simplicity to it i.e., — x (life going awry) + y (lighting up a Hamlet)= happiness. The average reader may not have heard of this iconic British commercial but India’s advertising fraternity would certainly know of it.
Happiness, advertising’s biggest cliché has been used by every entity who gives us a chance to be happy with their products and services. Coca-Cola has been uncorking happiness for quite some time and a recent commercial shows us a delightful happiness factory, should we doubt for a moment that happiness were manufactured elsewhere.
Hyundai is happiness, claims the Korean auto maker.
Britannia is celebrating 25 years of happiness, thankfully limiting it to 25 years of its Good Day biscuit.
This is what we do in advertising. We are the great foragers — hunting and tracking human insights, values, cultural codes, trends, social mores, and popular culture and interweaving them with complex hierarchies of motivations and emotions to sell products and services and build brands. We co-opt the rhetoric of revolution, feminism, George Orwell and the teachings of Gandhi to create ads that sell.
But with this fabulous mother lode of information and research we don’t change society or bring revolution. As long as consumers recognise the transactional nature of adverting and communication, everyone is happy. Consumers are hardwired to cut out the hype. The grey areas are lobbying and PR, where the real motives of selling are often masked in editorial content or advertising that does not look like advertising, breaking that transparent buyer-seller relationship.
Vedanta has continued this happiness trajectory in a campaign (now off air) ‘a cross between PR and advertising’ that tells us how young children and families in villages are finding happiness thanks to Vedanta’s initiatives. Five hundred and fifty villages was the number being talked about.
In my opinion, taking any nation-building mantle in communication should be left to God and governments — not to corporations. Even the Bhutanese government with its happiness index has to turn a blind eye (or at least not mention it in advertising) to the disturbing number of country liquor shops that dot every village in the denizen’s pursuit of happiness. In actual fact, National Rural Employment Guarantee Act (NREGA), a government of India initiative, may have brought more happiness into the lives of little girls like Binno and their families than Vedanta.
Like many readers, I have followed Arundathi Roy’s strong writing on the mining cartels in Odisha in a magazine and Amnesty’s reportage from there and it is difficult to be unaware of Vedanta’s involvement in the development vs displacement issues that dog the government. And there are environmentalists’ reports on red oxide effluents contaminating the areas where tribals live, but I will stick to the communication. As Vedanta discovered, happiness as a platform can be counterproductive if one does not treat the environment (pun unintended) correctly. In this case the social and political one.
Their advertising has drawn considerable flak from activists, but their strategy is what needs close examination. How did Vedanta assume that by speaking of sustainable integrated communities and happy little girls (Binno being one of them) in Rajasthan, they could turn attention away from tribal communities in Odisha? These little Binnos are not human carbon credits — the more Binnos they talked about the more likely they were to draw activists’ attention to what they were not talking about.
• Vedanta has continued this happiness trajectory in a campaign (now off air ) a cross between PR and advertising that tells us how young children and families in villages are finding happiness thanks to the company.
• Britannia is celebrating 25 years of happiness, thankfully limiting it to 25 years of its Good Day biscuit’s existence.
• Hyundai is happiness personified, claims the Korean auto maker.
In the time of social networks and consumer activism, which is growing more aggressive in India, how did Vedanta assume its rather obvious attempt at ‘green washing’ would work? In a post-Anna Hazare environment, it was either very naïve or very arrogant of Vedanta to assume no one would notice the disconnect!
On the other hand, the activists and liberals who launched a strong social media campaign against Vedanta’s communication took the softest targets to vent their ire on. To take on the advertising agency is equivalent to killing the messenger — the agency has no power and withdrawing ads will not change anything at the ground level. Asking filmmaker Shyam Benegal or actor Gul Panag to step down from committees sponsored by Vedanta seems a battle won, but it does not have any impact on the real issue.
If the cause is so strong, the activists need a much more powerful strategy to take on the government or the company directly. Often activist campaigns fizzle out because their strategies are not thought through and scattered while corporations focused on brand building are much more single minded.
Sometimes issues fizzle out. Nike was embroiled in a sweatshop controversy in Asia in the ’90s now long forgotten. Coke dealt with a groundwater depletion and contamination issue in India not so long ago. For many years Unilever was the focus of criticism from women’s groups and feminist groups for selling fairness creams — now fairness has become a mainstream grooming concern for men as well. It is likely that Vedanta and its red-oxide pond will be forgotten as other issues become more important.
But moving on, the question is what do you do if you are an advertising agency and you are asked to create corporate communication for a brand? Most agencies have clear-cut positions on political advertising and advertising for religious groups. Some may stretch it to liquor and tobacco products. Now, should we think about blood diamonds before we sign on a jewellery brand? Should we ask about fair trade practices before taking on a luxury clothing brand? Should we ask questions about shadow political investors before signing on a real estate business or look at track records in Mexico, China or other parts of Asia when multinationals come knocking on our door? Should we refuse the tender system for selecting agencies on big government projects?
It could open a Pandora’s Box — advertising agencies might end up becoming mini-investigative agencies. In the final analysis, they may succeed in creating greater happiness all around.
The author is an advertising and media professional, specialising in policy influences on consumer lifestyles. The views expressed are her own.