International Indexed & Refereed Journal, March, 2013, ISSN 0974-2832 (Print), E-ISSN- 2320-5474, RNI RAJBIL, 2009/29954,

VOL V * ISSUE- 50

Research Paper -Management

Surrogate Advertising -Hard Product

and Soft Promotion
* Dr. Jyotsna Haran ** Rishi Nepalia

March,2013

* Assit. Prof. , Royal College, Mumbai

** Research Scholar JNU, Jodhpur , Asst. Prof. Aishwarya College, Jodhpur
A B S T R A C T
Advertisement is a form of communication for marketing and used to encourage, persuade, or manipulate an audience
(viewers, readers or listeners; sometimes a specific group) to continue or take some new action. Most commonly, the desired
result is to drive consumer behavior with respect to a commercial offering, although political and ideological advertising
is also common. In Latin, ad vertere means "to turn the mind toward." The purpose of advertising may also be to reassure
employees or shareholders that a company is viable or successful. Advertising messages are usually paid for by sponsors
and viewed via various traditional media; including mass media such as newspaper, magazines, television commercial,
radio advertisement, outdoor advertising or direct mail; or new media such as websites or text messages.

Commercial advertisers often seek to generate increased

consumption of their products or services through
"branding," which involves associating a product name
or image with certain qualities in the minds of consumers. Non-commercial advertisers who spend money to
advertise items other than a consumer product or service include political parties, interest groups, religious
organizations and governmental agencies.
Meaning of Surrogate Advertisement
Surrogate Advertising' is a form of advertising which is used to promote banned products like
cigarettes and alcohol, in the disguise of another product. This type of advertising uses a product of a fairly
close category ex- club soda, or mineral water in case
of alcohol, or products of a completely different category ex- music CD's, playing cards etc to hammer the
brand name into the heads of consumers. The banned
product (alcohol or cigarettes) may not be projected
directly to consumers but rather masked under another
product under the same brand name, so that whenever
there is mention of that brand, people start associating
it with its main product(the alcohol or cigarette).
In India there are tons of companies doing
that, from Bacardi Blast music CD's, Bagpiper Club
Soda to Officers Choice playing cards. The masking
product i.e. the music CD's, or mineral water might not
even be marketed in real, it is just a strategy used to
generate top of the mind recall. In India extensive surveys resulted in similar findings which showed that
liquor ads had direct influence on Consumers purchase
behavior, and no sooner the Cable TV Regulation Act
banned liquor and cigarette advertisements, thus India
gradually adopted surrogate advertisements. Advertisements for liquor and cigarettes have been banned
since 1995. So companies usually either go for brand

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extension and promote the extended products or promote certain products which might not be available in
the market, ex- you might not necessarily find a Bacardi
Blast music CD. The excessive pressure of the ban
forced companies to focus more on brand building and
thus liquor companies started sponsoring and hosting
glamorous events, yet many others started distributing t-shirts, caps, key chains, drinking glasses with the
brand name displayed on these products.
Surrogate Advertising -Trends in India
The world today as we all know is a big marketplace and companies have to influence buyers to
purchase their products to achieve a dominant position in the market. Advertisements have strong influence in our life as in the prevalent times; advertisements are common in most fields such as sports, arts,
music, fashion, adventure tours and contests and in
media such as radio, television and the internet. In
India, even though it is legal to manufacture products
like tobacco, liquor, etc., these products have been
banned from being advertised because these products
are addictive in nature and ultimately cause harm to the
consumers. On the other hand, the producers or manufacturers, who spend large amounts of money for production, cannot be expected to stop advertising their
existence just because the government excludes them
from it or certain legislations have been brought into
force to ban such advertisements. To overcome such
restrictions, the producers have figured out ways to
evade this and these evaded methods are known as
"Surrogate Advertisements"
Ethical Issues
In India alcohol and cigarette advertisements
were banned outright some years back. However, alcohol and cigarette companies alike are using the avenue

International Indexed & Refereed Journal, March, 2013, ISSN 0974-2832 (Print), E-ISSN- 2320-5474, RNI RAJBIL, 2009/29954, VOL V * ISSUE- 50

of surrogate advertisements to press forward their case. ous advertisements. While in itself this is an important
For the viewer though, the 'subtle' pointer towards the ethical issue, an extension of this is the question of
real deal is enough as the surrogate advertisements credibility. Nowadays, newspaper columns are rife with
leave no ambiguity in their minds.Subliminal advertisements which blatantly compare features of
Advertisements One of the most controversial and brands with those of their competitors. Citing theopinion
ethical issues in advertising is regarding subliminal of 'experts', these advertisements claim their brands to
advertisements. Inserting subliminal messages in an be quantitatively and qualitatively better than those of
advertisement is an inherently misleading action. It is their rivals. In India a leading car manufacturer had to
an attempt to manipulate a person's thinking without recall its ad campaign when it incorrectly stated that
the person realizing that any such manipulation is one of its car models was superior to that of its
occurring. The west has had its fair share of subliminal competitor's.
advertisements related hullabaloos primarily because
Post Purchase Dissonance-What you see is
the advertisement, marketing and regulating media not often what you get Since very often what companies
themselves have been quite active in raising such issues. claim their products or services deliver is not what the
In developing countries the regulating watch- consumers actually get, the issue of post purchase
dogs and related establishments are still in stages of dissonance arises. There are two more non-contrasting
latency so that the possibility that viewers who would viewpoints on this issue. One states the typical
be subject to such measures would probably never examples of Tele-Shopping Networks (TSN) and the
ever know that they were the focus of such procedures. internet. Since there is no element of tangibility, the
The Ethical Issue of 'Creating Demand' In the words of consumer would typically end up getting an end product
Pope John Paul II, advertising also can be, and often is, which he/she didn't literally ask for. The other viewpoint
a tool of the phenomenon of consumerism. Sometimes states that such establishments would be punished by
advertisers speak of it as part of their task to 'create' market forces since in today's world the consumer is
needs for products and services- that is, to cause people undoubtedly the king. But in associating such conto feel and act upon desires for items and services they cerns to the game play of market forces, the larger
would ordinarily not need.
ethical issue is unfortunately trivialized.
A piquant issue arises when consumerist
Depicting groups in stereotyped roles all too
attitudes and values are transmitted by communications often, marketing contributes to the invidious
media and advertising to developing countries, where stereotyping of particular groups that places them at
they exacerbate socio-economic problems and harm a disadvantage in relation to others. Women and
the poor. While a judicious use of advertising can children unfortunately end up being cast as stereotypes
stimulate developing countries to improve their in ad campaigns the world over. Often, the role of women
standard of living, serious harm can be done to them in business or professional life is depicted as a masculine
if advertising and commercial pressure become so caricature, a denial of the specific gifts of feminine
irresponsible that communities seeking to rise from insight, compassion, and understanding.
poverty to a reasonable standard of living are perIn India, which has traditionally been a
suaded to seek this progress by satisfying wants that patriarchal society, tremendous cultural changes have
have been artificially created. The result of this is that been brought in with the advent of cable television and
they waste their resources and neglect their real needs, the exposure to western content. Urban women are
and genuine development falls behind.
enjoying more freedom than they've had before. Yet,
Predatory Pricing In developing nations where promotional campaigns of certain firms still show the
the bulk of the populace is still employed in small and Indian woman of yore-a fallback to a time when women
medium enterprises, the use of predatory pricing by did not enjoy the freedoms they have today.
large multinational corporations in order to wipe out
The ber kid In India, objections have been
competition is an ethical issue. While proponents of no raised against advertisements that showed mothers
holds barred pricing would attribute this to an unfettered benchmarking their children to the so called 'superfree market, the fact remains that the larger issue is the kid'- one who excels in studies and sports alike simply
threat of wiping out the livelihood of a large number of because he consumes a particular health drink.
people. In India, a related issue is the entry of western Promotion of Alcohol, Tobacco-Creating Demand for
discount stores that might eventually threaten the Vice Cigarettes are one of the most heavily marketed
existence of millions of people employed in traditional products in China and other developing nations. An
mom-and-pop stores..
increasing percentage of those marketing dollars is
False and Misleading Advertisements Then dedicated to what are probably the most sophisticated
there are the issue of false and downright disingenu- consumer marketing databases in the business world.
SHODH, SAMIKSHA AUR MULYANKAN
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International Indexed & Refereed Journal, March, 2013, ISSN 0974-2832 (Print), E-ISSN- 2320-5474, RNI RAJBIL, 2009/29954, VOL V * ISSUE- 50

Tobacco advertising is no longer just the province of

multi-million dollar ad budgets pushing the Marlboro
Man, Joe Camel's phallic face or the women in the
Virginia Slims' ads who have 'come a long way.' It is
equally the province of direct marketers, pushing free
packs to targeted prospects and mailing slick magazines-published by tobacco companies-to influence
the behavior and retain the loyalty of tens of millions
of smokers And the problem is pandemic-is is prevalent
in both developing as well as developed countries
alike. The tobacco industry argues that its advertising
is not aimed at recruiting these young new smokers.
Its representatives say, disingenuously, that
advertising by individual tobacco companies' targets
adults only and serve only to encourage regular smokers
to switch brands or to retain brand loyalty. However it
has been seen that perception of cigarette brand
advertising actually is higher among young smokers
and that changes in market share resulting from
advertising occur mainly in this segment. Cigarette
advertising thus undoubtedly encourages youth to
smoke.
Intrusive Promotions A number of companies
offer a plethora of freebies in terms of services and
add-ons, however all these come with the proverbial
strings attached. These are particularly true for telecom
and internet services related companies. Mobile
network providers in India for example are notorious for
literally bombarding the users with promotional text
messages. Many a times these companies share
customer data with other companies without the explicit
permission of the customers themselves. The issue at
hand is such measures compromise the confidentiality

of company-client relationships and trivialize the privacy concerns of the customers.

Copyright, trademark violations Copyright and trademark violations are ubiquitous throughout the developing world. One of the major grouses of multinational
corporations in countries like China and India is the
lack of a robust legal framework that harshly penalizes
violators. Data piracy is a major concern in South East
nations and millions of illegal compact discs are made
in such countries which cost software, music and movie
companies billions of dollars.
Conclusion
Advertisements as Mirrors of prevailing norms
Marketers claim that advertising simply mirrors the
attitudes and values of the surrounding culture. No
doubt advertising, like the media of social communications in general, does act as a mirror. But, also like media
in general, it is a mirror that helps shape the reality it
reflects, and sometimes it presents a distorted image of
reality. Advertisers are selective about the values and
attitudes to be fostered and encouraged, promoting
some while ignoring others. This selectivity does not
impart credence to the notion that advertising does no
more than reflect the surrounding culture.
For example, the absence from advertising of
certain racial and ethnic groups in some multi-racial or
multi-ethnic societies can help to create problems of
image and identity, especially among those neglected,
and the almost inevitable impression in commercial
advertising that an abundance of possessions leads to
happiness and fulfillment can be both misleading and
frustrating. Advertising also has an indirect but powerful impact on society through its influence on media.
Many publications and broadcasting operations depend on advertising revenue for survival.

R E F E R E N C E
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