Selling Dark And Real Aspirations

“Continue hoyenga, continue hoyenga,” sings a dusky bellboy in the Mumbaiya dailect expressing endearing optimism in the face of the fag end of the free internet and call services of Jio which will end on March 31. With these words, the latest Jio advertisement comes to a dancing end. He is just one of the ­faces of a new trend in Indian advertising which evokes the proverbial aam aadmi by featuring more ‘common’, regular looking faces on your TV and smartphone screens in stark contrast with all the ‘fair and lovely’ glam that we have been used to.    

“Realistic is in,” says Priti Nair, director at ad agency Curry Nation. “The industry is now looking at addressing real stories, through real people,” she adds.

As the Indian consumer market widens exp­o­n­entially there has been a ­certain shift in casting in the Indian advertisement ­industry. A great per­c­entage of ads are now straying away from the conventional market idea of beauty, and casting more ‘real’ looking people.

“Authentic is also in,” says Tista Sen, creative director at ad agency J. Walter Thompson. “It is no longer the fair, long hair, long legs, slender women ruling the screen,” she says. The new Bluestone (an online jewellery shop) ad, for instance, is an example of this with its cast of two very ‘girl-next-door’ looking, olive skin women fighting, only to make up for a jewellery selection. The ads closing line ‘I don’t know why I ever doubt myself’ is an apt fit for the steadily changing consciousness of Indian consumers.

The medium has also expanded humungou­sly—a massive number of young consumers are hooked to the post-TV world of social media. Along with other things, it has brought about its own emancipatory potential and change of sensibilities. People are no more a flock for advertisers to lead on. For this target audience, the content of ads has changed accordingly. “The internet and  the social media have broadened understandings, and brought everyone closer to reality,” says Sen. Nair points out that with the market opening up, ads are also now catering to Tier III and IV cities.

“The change in content has occurred because customers have themselves evolved. But advertisers will always play safe,” says ad guru Prahlad Kakkar. “As professionals they wouldn’t ever want to risk even a fingernail.” The veteran believes that the industry should be working on bringing about change but it only does enough to mirror the already set change. “The generation between 25-35 is not like their parents. Women of this generation now have the con­f­idence to say ‘yes, I am dark and bea­u­t­iful’,” he says. It is this confidence reflected in all the women cast in Tanishq’s Mia campaign #BestAtWork where women challenged the “just ­because I’m a chick” comment, or in the girl “jiske mann mein laddoo phoota” when she saw ­a handsome neighbour move in, in the Cadbury shots ad.

Tanishq was one of the first brands to start the trend of “alternate advertising”. “Brands over time have realised that relatable people are the best way to reach the target audience,” says fashion designer Paromita Banerjee, who now makes it a point to have faces for her campaigns that her customers can identify with. “Tanishq realised the sentimental ads weren’t working anymore,” says Kakkar. The brand switched its strategy and came up with the ad about a second marriage of a mother of a young kid, and yes, the mother has a dark complexion.

However, these new ads are mostly for categories other than cosmetics and grooming, which remains a conventional beauty market sticking to the fair, tall, and lean market aesthetic. “The criteria for such beauty brands are mentioned bef­ore any audition, so I don’t even bother to try,” says model Alice Rosario, who endorses brands that fit with her “funky” personality—her cropped hair and dark skin.

“Dove is perhaps the only true exception in this,” says Nair. The brand has been running real women survey campaigns for their ads for long now. And many brands have followed suit. Cinthol’s #ReadyForAwesome campaign with women athletes, for instance, and the United Colors of Benetton’s #UnitedByHalf, are only two of a long list featuring real women.

“Brands now understand two things—to sell a product, sentimental jargon will not work unless weaved with modern outlooks, and that real people will best connect with the target audience as opp­osed to idealised beauties,” says Kakkar. “The ‘only-fair-can-be-beautiful’ idea is slowly changing. But for one progressive ad, there are 100 bad ones,” warns Sen. Model Mitali Rannorey, who is known to be the dark beauty on the ramp agrees with her. “The fact that a dark skinned model like Archana Akhil Kumar has been part of so many ads, from Nirav Modi jewellery to Forrest Essentials, shows a shift,” she says. Ad narratives have also seen a dramatic change. Whether it’s a second marriage, single mothers, unmarried individuals, div­orces, the stories too are steering away from the earlier idealistic narratives.

But most, while acknowledging the shift, believe there is a long way to go. Sociologist, Shiv Visvanathan believes that changing the representation makes no difference at all as it is only a false notion of empowerment. He calls it the false democracy of ads. “It is superficial and an apology for progress,” he says. Kakkar concedes too. He believes change will only happen when in fact ads look to bring change as opposed to snuggle into existing change. Brands like Fair & Lovely and Fair and Handsome still tell consumers that confidence comes with fair skin, albeit their on-screen presence has reduced and most of them have been relegated to half-page columns in newspapers. But bathing is still a show time for the fair skinned, and perfumes still the weapon of the fair-and-beautiful.