Professional Documents
Culture Documents
VOL V * ISSUE- 50
March,2013
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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
R E F E R E N C E
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http://www.isrj.net/June/2011/Commerce_Surrogate_Advertising.html http://www.scribd.com/doc/53687500/SurrogateAdvertising
The relationship between tobacco advertisements and smoking status of youth in India ', by
Shah PB, Pednekar MS, Gupta PC, Sinha DN.Asian Pac J Cancer Prev. 2008 Oct-Dec;9(4):637-42
K. Karunakaran, Marketing Management, Himalaya Publishing House, Mumbai
Belch and Belch, Advertising and Promotion, Tata McGraw Hill, New Delhi.
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