Advertising is the ‘beautiful’ and talent art of selling product to China. A successful advertising campaign would make sure that China books his product first before he goes craze about the wonderful product for basic needs even in less cost.
Casting aside all detail advertisements beating our senses every minute we are awake; chasing us everywhere from the blinking neon signs and giant hoardings to the campaigns on television and magazines.
Pick up a magazine and you may be attracted with toothpaste smiles, many home appliances, jazzed-up shirts and clothes, or be dragged against your will to tourist trip to a country.
In case you are still here, let me take you back 50 years to a world where our elder most shopped around; a world painstakingly resurrected for you from old magazines, newspapers and trade journals.
The size of the Indian market half a century ago must have been miniscule compared to what it is today.
In an age when television was unknown, and the few available radios ‘out of bounds’ for advertising, sellers jumped into print to get at the affluent in British India. No wonder, the advertisements mirrored the opulent lifestyle of the elite in the Rule, sometimes exhibiting a quality of consumerism as sophisticated as it is today.
Advertising pages included products like saris, furniture and jewelry; the automobile industry advertisements exuded class with Mercedez, Peugots, Chevrolets and local brands vying for attention.
For those who wanted to shoot film there were advertisements for cameras like Kodak, Nikon etc. the trade journals displayed machinery and hardware, most of which landed at our ports from Britain and Germany.
Among the usual display of lathe machines and electric motors there were advertisements for the wonderful Electrolux refrigerator capable of being run on kerosene or gas, making it a real work-horse in remote areas of the Rule untouched by electricity.
In the more accessible tracts, enterprising tour operators sold “places of serene scenic beauty” undeterred by the dull and drab tourist brochures brought out by the provincial administration.
The government stepped into the market in a big way as well, sometimes with hilarious irony (for the present day reader) when it had to insert full page advertisement to sell electricity and (believe it or not) telephone connections too!
The language used in the advertisements of yesteryears makes interesting reading.
English used five decades ago has, over the years, like good wine mellowed between yellowed pages, and today, sparkles with humor. Some advertisements made simple direct appeals to one’s patriotism or sense of duty.
The strategy used in advertising then was down-to-earth – no foam-laden dangling female legs in bath-tubs or beads of glistening perspiration on macho muscles.
In many cases, sellers were peddling already established international brand names and it was merely necessary to let the public know the address of the dealer.
Now, celebrities become ambassador for each company’s product to exhibit product’s and companies’ strength to reach till public.
Now, technology helps advertiser to print enlarges their banner as much as they can instead of art or paint as before.
So, we will see many more changes ahead in advertisement. Advertisement also one of the important activity to become success.
