Advertising successfully to India's cultural diversity

The rapid growth of social media and the mobile Internet is changing ways that businesses reach
out to their customers and even more importantly how customers are influencing and shaping
companies and their brands. Marketers everywhere are under pressure to deliver increased ROI
and better metrics. The challenge for Indian marketers is in not only integrating these evolving
communication channels, but in adapting them to India's unique diverse cultures and audiences.
Multinational firms have adopted integrated marketing communications (IMC) successfully in
developed markets as a means of achieving high brand coherence and ROI. As these firms focus
on India and it's vast middle class, they face unique challenges - spanning language, regional
culture and religion, in addition to lifestyle group classifications - in adapting their IMC
methodology.
Have firms, Indian and multinational, figured out the right IMC mix to bridging India's
traditional culture and the evolving modern world of its growing youth population? Professor S.
Ramesh Kumar of IIM Bangalore has explored this question by analyzing mainstream media
advertising campaigns and drawn some useful conclusions.
Analysis of Advertisements
Professor Ramesh Kumar uses the concept of a ritual setting - which is the context portrayed
by a brand's communication with the intent of creating a specific perception in the mind of the
consumer. He illustrates this with the example of brands such as Titan or Cadbury's positioning
themselves as an appropriate gift across a variety of circumstances. Such a gift-giving ritual
setting in his words creates a gifting-brand association. The ritual setting can also highlight or
differentiate the cultural values being portrayed in a particular advertisement.
Professor Kumar analyzed advertisements in the fast-moving consumer goods (FMCG) sector.
Specific advertisements he looked at included a bleaching cream (Fair and Lovely) and coffee
(Sunrise). Both the advertisements studied, have a young woman as the protagonist. The analysis
was done in the context of a set of pre-identified values and ritual settings, as shown in Tables 1
and 2.
Table 1
Ritual Setting Values
Cricket
Middle-class dreams
Family happiness
Western ideal of
beauty
Family bonding
Individualism
Respect for work
Self Esteem
Achievement
seeking
Table 2
Ritual Setting Values
Urban
Modern couple
Traditional Apparel
Western Apparel
Preparation of traditional
coffee
Nominalism
Conservatism
Personal
grooming
Social
orientation
New mindset
Fair & Lovely
In the case of the bleaching cream Fair & Lovely, a middle-class girl's aspiration for a hither-to
male dominated cricket commentator's role is used as the central thesis. The use of the cream is
portrayed as increasing the girl's self confidence, leading to her ultimate success, making her
family proud and even recognition by a cricket celebrity.
By weaving middle-class aspirations with the cultural ideal of family's happiness within the
ritual setting of cricket, the advertisement balances competing values even while avoiding the
minefield of racial or cultural stereotyping that skin lightening could imply.
Sunrise
In an example of a more detailed and culturally-specific story-telling, the coffee advertisement
depicts an urban couple, shopping in a modern supermarket, when they hear from elderly (and
traditional) relatives who plan to visit them. The husband receives the couple, while the wife
quickly doffs her western attire and appears in a traditional ethnic dress and make up. She then
serves them coffee which is much appreciated. By weaving traditional elements such as the
seeking of elders' blessings as well as the ritual of coffee preparation with the reality of India's
urban nuclear families that have both spouses working, the advertisement seeks to strike a
delicate balance.
Professor Kumar suggests that the communication campaign for a specific brand should be in
line with the personality values associated with the target group of consumers for that brand.
This approach can also be used to differentiate target segments in terms of both demographics
and psychographics.
Conclusion
India's growing consumer marketplace presents a great opportunity for both domestic and
multinational businesses. Furthermore the advent of social media and the mobile internet are
changing how consumers are informed and make their buying decisions. This requires a well
planned integrated marketing communications strategy. Using personality value analysis and
linking them to specific brands, taking into consideration the target segment is likely to add value
to integrated marketing communications campaigns planned by companies for India. This is a
useful perspective in particular to multinational brands that need to adapt to the Indian context.
Connecting with the consumers values is more likely to create a strong bond between the
consumer and the brand.