The purpose of advertisement can be three dimensional, to inform, to persuade and to remind. Through advertising, with time, product brands become substitutes for the product itself.
Dr. Lalit Mohan Sharma
There was a time when I saw advertisements for Soda drinks, with names of famous whiskeys, making a get together of friends really an occasion of celebration. Indirectly, I thought that by proxy it was advertising the reputed brands of 100 Piepers or Royal Stag. But I was wrong. It is a proxy when it is authorized by someone to do a thing. This, in fact, was a clear case of hoodwinking the law which prohibited advertising of alcoholic drinks and cigarettes.
Sachin Tendulkar once remarked how on a word from his father, he has never done advertising for cigarettes and alcohol. That’s a sportsman’s ethics. It sounds pretty natural since such consumer items as cigarettes carry the warning, that its consumption is dangerous to health. But, the practice of Soda drinks being offered to consumers under fallacious name- brands is dereliction of standard ethical conduct.
Not only the items mentioned above, brand names for tobacco products as Gutka also camouflage identity in eyes of law, and are regularly put to the consumer in a clandestine manner, like, selling Elaichi, cardamom, as a tasty addictive for the people. The cruel pity is that the most celebrated and reputed names from cinema and cricket endorse such products.
Dust in the eyes of the law. Big money is made by legendary stars from sports and cinema. People, thus foxed, invite ailments and diseases. Public health is endangered under the alert eye of the courts. Is that what we call civilized life, clean and transparent, healthy and wellbeing?
Dust in the eyes of the law. Big money is made by legendary stars from sports and cinema.
The Public Gambling Act is almost ancient and even contemporary since gambling invites penalty. Certain states like Maharashtra have stricter sanctions and higher fines for gamblers. Horse Racing is an exception. In one advertisement, a young man can’t visit his other on Diwali for lack of money. His friend has a solution for him. The on-line gaming courtesy the game of cricket. And that’s as if one always keeps winning. Similarly, people get busy on their phones during the IPL season. Although gambling is ancient, (Shudrak‘s Sanskrit plays of the second century mention it), yet the law of independent India does not endorse its general practice in the open.
Patriotism is a noble, and a universally admired passion. Yet, sanctity of this noble sentiment is also milked for advertising Tiles, which we are told made from desh ki ‘ millti’, the soil of India for which soldiers shed their blood. That’s as if the other tile makers don’t use India soil but of another country!
Is that what we call civilized life, clean and transparent, healthy and wellbeing?
Now, as is well- acknowledged, the purpose of advertisement can be three dimensional, to inform, to persuade and to remind. In the examples mentioned above, there are obvious attempts at misinformation or disinformation; there is the effort to seduce the consumer into buying not too desirable in itself. Through advertising with time, product brands become substitutes for the product itself. Dalda as ghee acquired this habit with the consumer, so much so when Rath appeared as a new brand, one would say, couldn’t get Dalda but Rath-wala dalda. Similar has been the case with Surf as washing powder, and as Det appeared, it seemed to be a new name for Surf. That’s the wonderful manner in which a brand reminds the consumer of the product necessary for his needs.
Propriety is for the Trash Can for selling a product. If the law forbids, find another way, Jugaad is the thing for where there’s will, there’s the way.
Read: I like Hierarchy, I am Hierarchical
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Dr. Lalit Mohan Sharma, born in 1952, has published ten books of English poetry which include ‘Man with A Horn’, ‘Eyes of Silence’ and ‘There’s No Death’. His book, A Three- Step Journey, is English translation of Zahid’s Urdu poems. ‘Icicles of Time’ is the latest in 2024. Sharma was conferred with ‘Master of Creative Impulse’ at World Poetry Conference in 2019. A former Principal, Government College, Dharamshala, he has been anthologized in several books of poetry, stories and such books of academic interest as 21st Century Critical Thought: A Dialogue with Post-Modern Voices Vol I, (2020), A Handbook of Contemporary Ethics, (2024), Ed by Molly Joseph and JS Anand
