In the hysterical anxiety to engage and entertain an impatient and promiscuous youth-oriented target base, is advertising forgetting its basic agenda – of informing, convincing and selling? 4Ps B&M investigates
In the Hollywood of the late fifties and early sixties, anxiety, confusion and hysteria had set in due to movies not being able to engage the viewer in a way they were expected to. The reason? Television had entered the scene and the earlier ‘captive’ audience suddenly had a compelling choice not to watch the stuff they didn’t choose to. So what did Hollywood do? The secret, trick, knack, art – call it what you will – that the big daddies of movies used was to understand the strength of their medium and then strike at the core philosophy. Instead of trying to improve the substance of movies to compete with the meaningful serials coming on television, they upped the ante by ballooning the budget, scale and spectacle of movies in a way that the twenty-one inch idiot box could never hope to match! In other words, rather than giving more arty movies (meant for the ‘intelligent’ viewer), movie houses went for the larger-than-life metaphor, showcasing surrealistic scenes that could only be, if at all, imagined. And it worked liked nobody’s business! It seemed that the world was made up of more people wanting dunce, yet spectacular screen entertainment, than meaningful ‘stuff’, a reality that exists till today.
The question is, is today’s advertising scene echoing a déjà vu? Due to the changing scenario, is the ad fraternity mistaking (perhaps correctly so) style for substance, form for content? Are frivolity and entertainment the new games in town? Is engagement – at any cost – the prime motive, totally obliterating the basic agenda of advertising which supposedly was to inform, persuade and sell? Look at the latest ads around you – from that car ad showcasing a smiling celebrity in the throes of pleasure, to that cell phone service manufacturer imploring you to jump on the next tiger you see on the road to of course ‘save the tiger’, the intent is clearly to catch the viewer’s attention, than to educate him about the exact qualities of the product. What gives? Is the ad-world finally over the edge?
In the Hollywood of the late fifties and early sixties, anxiety, confusion and hysteria had set in due to movies not being able to engage the viewer in a way they were expected to. The reason? Television had entered the scene and the earlier ‘captive’ audience suddenly had a compelling choice not to watch the stuff they didn’t choose to. So what did Hollywood do? The secret, trick, knack, art – call it what you will – that the big daddies of movies used was to understand the strength of their medium and then strike at the core philosophy. Instead of trying to improve the substance of movies to compete with the meaningful serials coming on television, they upped the ante by ballooning the budget, scale and spectacle of movies in a way that the twenty-one inch idiot box could never hope to match! In other words, rather than giving more arty movies (meant for the ‘intelligent’ viewer), movie houses went for the larger-than-life metaphor, showcasing surrealistic scenes that could only be, if at all, imagined. And it worked liked nobody’s business! It seemed that the world was made up of more people wanting dunce, yet spectacular screen entertainment, than meaningful ‘stuff’, a reality that exists till today.
The question is, is today’s advertising scene echoing a déjà vu? Due to the changing scenario, is the ad fraternity mistaking (perhaps correctly so) style for substance, form for content? Are frivolity and entertainment the new games in town? Is engagement – at any cost – the prime motive, totally obliterating the basic agenda of advertising which supposedly was to inform, persuade and sell? Look at the latest ads around you – from that car ad showcasing a smiling celebrity in the throes of pleasure, to that cell phone service manufacturer imploring you to jump on the next tiger you see on the road to of course ‘save the tiger’, the intent is clearly to catch the viewer’s attention, than to educate him about the exact qualities of the product. What gives? Is the ad-world finally over the edge?
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Source : IIPM Editorial, 2010.
An Initiative of IIPM, Malay Chaudhuri and Arindam chaudhuri (Renowned Management Guru and Economist).
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