Changes in Indian Ad Sphere- Tata Tea, CondomCondom and Anil Ambani Group's Media Campaign

Typically one sees the role of advertisements in persuading the consumer to buy a product or a service, but this, though a dominant view is in many ways a limited view also, because the advertisements is a form of communication which can be used to even to promote an idea or just inform people and we can see many examples of this in the Indian market today.

Most of what we see on TV sets today falls into the pure-selling end of the spectrum and the obvious is not what would interest people, but here are the exceptions ....

In the recent past we have seen ads being used to promote ideas and inducing change in habits like the one on usage of condom , by BBC world service trust . I had written earlier about the campaign too (link) and the website also shares the impact of the ads, quite an interesting read, link . Similarly there is the Bell Bajao Campaign against domestic violence.

The recent campaigns of Tata tea "Jaagoo Re Campaign" falls somewhere in between the pure-selling and 100% philanthropy. They have a series of ads, which started with issue of increasing awareness among youth towards voting, to the latest one against corruption in the country. Now though these campaigns are not directly about the tea, but the product also makes an entry into the ad, though at a later stage.

The third category of ads, like the one being used by the Anil Ambani Group, where they have made use of large press ads to question the issue of costs involved in developing Krishna Godawari (KG) gas basin by RIL. Through these ads they are trying to share their side of the story with the common man and somehow also bring him into the equation. These kinds of campaigns have been done in the past , when companies have felt the need to share their perspective with common man, as was done by the Private Airline operators in the country some time back.

Though these kind of ads form a very small part of the ad world but I think they show the versatility of the purpose of advertisements.....