Is there a larger conspiracy behind anti-Hindu Advertisements?

 

These days, we are witnessing mass online protests against one commercial Ad after another, other what appears to be anti-Hindu content. FabIndia is latest example, where the company aired an Ad appealing to Muslims on the occasion of Diwali and people were immediately offended by it. Before that Myntra and Tanishq are other recent examples which created outrage.

On the surface, people are wondering why so many companies are showing Ads which are especially against Hindu culture. There is no similar attempt to hurt feelings of other religions and Hindus are specifically the target. My views on this are as follows.

If we notice which companies are making such “risky” Ads, we can notice that mostly big multinational or national corporations are making such ads, not small or medium size companies. Most Advertisements try to do sales promotion for companies’ products and services. These are part of marketing campaigns over which big companies spend crores of rupees. If a company gives a discount which happens during Diwali sales and puts advertisement, it will increase sales only during the “season”. So, what most big companies are trying to do is to shape “customer behavior permanently” through these Ad campaigns! Think about it and it will keep getting clearer.

A few years ago, most companies and products in India were local or national. Since 1990s, lot of MNCs came to India. Plus, there are many foreign Ad Agencies working in India too. The MNCs found local Indian culture, which was predominately Hindu culture, “different”. Traditional Indian culture did not encourage the over-commercial, materialistic, transactional, impulsive shopping experiences. Indians were looking for mainly permanent solutions rather than things which need to be replaced every few years (this is why Japanese products became too popular in India, before American brands arrived). So, these companies, instead of molding their products and services totally for the local culture, decided to change the behavior patter of Indian consumers. They heavily relied on mass media campaigns and advertisements for this purpose.

Many people have noticed that TV Ads do not show Hindu women wearing “bindi” anymore. It is simply because if they show women wearing Bindi, it sends a “traditional” impression in the minds of viewers, and hence customers are not encouraged to do impulsive shopping. Hence the TV Ads essentially show women in Western attire, doing shopping, bullying their husbands, or doing things what traditionally men do, in order to trigger modern, liberated impressions in customers, which could promote generous, impulsive shopping in female customers.

And when it comes to promote such commercial culture, all companies are on the “same side”, because it is in their common interest to change customer behaviour towards materialism and excessive, impulsive buying. Also, most businesses are inter-connected these days and higher sales in one business can also increase sales in other sectors.

Therefore, I think the larger battle we are witnessing is to “change customer behavior permanently”, “make them more Western in thinking and decision making”, “get them out of traditional culture which discourages spending”, and the likes. These companies are trying to tell us that we have got “one life” and hence we need to enjoy that "one chance of human life" by buying their products and services which at the end of the day means transferring our money from our bank accounts into their pockets ASAP. That is the ultimate purpose of all these Ads. So, I think that these Ads do not specifically want to hurt Hindu feelings, but are ending up doing it because the Hindu culture is coming in their way. 

What FabIndia probably tried to do was to "differentiate" itself among the minds of Muslim customers, making use of the Diwali festival. During Diwali time, all companies and brands appeal the festival driven customers, who are predominantly Hindu, although Diwali has a secular side too. If we look at marketing campaigns of most brands, they make use of symbols of Diya, Shri Ganesha or pictures of Goddess Lakshmi too. What perhaps FabIndia tried to do was to try to stand out of the crowd, and appeal to Muslims by giving their campaign a different look. If it worked, perhaps FabIndia would have got sales from Muslim customers during Diwali, which could be seen as a "win" for marketing team, right? They took a "risk" and it backfired because customers still see Diwali as a Hindu festival and were not happy with any company tampering their experience. 

I think it would be more sensible for all companies' future growth to understand the local culture and try to interwind their product and services with the local culture, instead of confronting it. Brands like Cadbury already succeeded in doing it many years ago, when it tried to make people buy and gift chocolates along with Diwali sweets on the festive occasion. Cadbury did not call sweets "regressive" or try to make those who buy sweets appear inferior. It did not offend, and hence it was more successful. 

As a bottom line, I would want that companies and brands should show better sensibility by not hurting local Hindu culture and rather make use of local cultural nuances to their advantage.

- Rahul Tiwary