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COVER
STORY
Cross-cultural
Study on Portrayal of Women in Advertisements
: Asian and Western Perspective
-- Divya Nigam
The
human life revolves around the existence of a
special force, which is a woman. She may be playing
any role in an individual's life, be it mother,
sister, wife, daughter, etc., but her importance
cannot be undermined. Advertisements, being the
reflection of society, have tried to exploit this
knowledge for decades for generating positive
outcomes-in the form of higher sales, easy acceptance
of products, attracting larger section of society,
etc. But have they succeeded in portraying her
real picture, or is the identity of a woman lost
in between? This article is a study on the portrayal
of women in the advertisements across the globe
categorized broadly under the Western and the
Asian scenario.
© 2007 IUP . All Rights
Reserved
ADVERTISING
Political
Advertising : Boon or Bane
-- B Prem Kumar
The
recent UP elections witnessed political parties
creating a differentiation for themselves, without
focusing on their core strengths and deliverables.
In the end, the triumph was for the one who was
successful in reaching the target group. Advertisements
play a very important role in every sector, including
the political sector, to reach the masses, to
win the elections. It can shower blessings if
projected wisely; otherwise, it can be a curse
resulting in drastic failure. The recent UP elections
proved that if ads are projected in an unrealistic
manner, they will show extreme results and become
a bane rather than a boon.
© 2007 IUP . All Rights
Reserved
ADVERTISING
Humor
in Advertising
-- L Shankari
The
advertising industry across the globe has been
spreading its wings at a supersonic speed. It
is a welcome news for all advertising professionals
as they are aware that brand building and promoting
sales are the twin objectives their ads should
achieve. `Familiarity breeds contempt', is an
adage true in this profession. The advertisers
who are highly innovative, creative and can create
modern concepts that perfectly match the modern
trends will only succeed in this field. Creation
of every ad is an exhilarating experience for
them. The advertisers attempt various gimmicks
to capture the attention of the viewers and one
such tactics is infusing humor in ads. This article
considers this interesting dimension in advertising.
It also briefly enumerates the dos and don'ts
for ad people while using humor in ads. The animating
section of the article is the one that illustrates
some popular and rib-tickling Indian ads that
are currently aired on various TV channels.
© 2007 IUP . All Rights
Reserved
ADVERTISING
Advertisements
- Shaping a Child's Future : An Indian Insight
-- Debashree Mukherjee
Advertisements have a far-reaching impact
on children. They influence their tender minds
in three ways, viz., cognitive effect, attitudinal
effect and behavioral effect. Children readily
get attracted to the advertised products due to
their observable features, but their consumer
knowledge of the same does not exceed beyond the
surface level. The impact of advertisements on
the various age groups of children varies depending
upon their knowledge of existing brands, parental
supervision, mode of delivery of the advertisement
and other variables. Parents, ad visualizers,
marketers and governments have to make a concerted
effort to reduce the negative impact of advertisements
on children.
© 2007 IUP . All Rights
Reserved
ADVERTISING
Point
of Purchase Advertising : Final Opportunity to
Influence Consumer Decision-making
-- Rajiv Joshi
Point
of Purchase (POP) advertising is widely used in
the retail set-up (In-store), be it retailing
of products or services. Various researches state
that 70% of the purchase decisions are made by
the consumer after entering the store. This degree
varies depending upon the product category and
the retail format. POP is the only medium that
places advertising, products and a consumer together
in the same place at the same time. POP advertising
is one of the fastest growing categories and powerful
media as one of the components of marketing communication
mix in today's marketplace. POP advertising communicates
the brand message and works as a silent salesman
at the time when consumer can patronize a product
or forgo a product and the company selling that
product, without spending money on its advertisement.
© 2007 IUP . All Rights
Reserved
BRANDING
Branding
Financial Services : A Strategic Model to Sustain
Brand Equity
-- S Vasumathy
"Branding
is the effort of a company to evoke a particular
response in the end-user/consumer's mind about
a particular product or service". Keeping in mind
the importance of assigning brand names to financial
services, the author conducted a survey on brand
awareness of financial services and its relevance.
This is rather well proved by the success stories
of the joint ventures in private insurance sector.
Both the participants already had established
their brands in their own fields. All that the
customers had to do was to recollect the brand
and strengthen its position in their minds.
© 2007 IUP . All Rights
Reserved
BRANDING
Does
Branding and Selling Go Together in the TV Industry?
-- Siddhartha Paul
The global television industry consists of
big brand names such as Sony, Samsung, Sharp,
Panasonic, LG Electronics and Matsushita Electric.
These companies had their respective core competence
in manufacturing either Liquid Crystal Display
(LCD) or Plasma screen TV sets. Sharp, which launched
the world's first 14" color LCD TV, dominated
the global LCD TV segment till 2005. In 2001,
Samsung came out with digital TVs with state-of-the-art
technology. As television sets became an integral
part of the family room, consumers form a strong
bond with this consumer electronic product.
© 2007 IUP . All Rights
Reserved
STRATEGY
Analysis
of Market Positioning and Flexibility
-- R Renganathan
`Flexibility' is an important concept in the
business environment. Product `positioning' plays
a vital role in achieving a competitive advantage.
Marketers cannot have a particular positioning
of their products over a period of time. Based
upon the changing needs of the prospective customers
and also the global competition, marketers have
to be flexible enough to adopt changes. Thus,
marketers of new brands have to adopt more focused
strategy to succeed. The article analyzes how
marketers should position their products and how
flexible they should be to adopt changes as per
the changing needs of the present and prospective
customers.
© 2007 IUP . All Rights
Reserved
STRATEGY
Going
Rural : The New Branding Mantra
-- Makarand Upadhyaya and Swati Soni
Rural
consumers are a combination of rural sensitivities
and urban aspirations. They want to try out products,
which were earlier considered to be the prerogative
of the urban populace. But price proved to be
a major constraint. Driving rural consumption
is much more difficult than lowering prices and
increasing volumes. It entails product innovation
and developing indigenous products to cater to
rural demands. Practical demonstration of the
efficiency and efficacy of the products before
a gathering of the village folks can go a long
way in changing the existing habits and lifestyles
and escalating to the ones needed by rural marketers.
This article discusses some of the aspects of
rural advertising and marketing.
© 2007 IUP . All Rights
Reserved
PERSPECTIVE
Unethical
Audience Voting on Reality Shows : A Boon for
India Inc.
-- Kisholoy Roy
Audiences who vote on reality shows have been,
by and large, found to attach more importance
to the ethnic and regional backgrounds of the
contestants. They also attach more importance
to their appearance and their capacity to weave
a moving story for garnering emotional support
rather than judging them on their skill levels.
The opportunity to win large sums of prize money
and other goodies along with getting instant fame
and recognition has been so tempting that not
just upcoming talents but also celebrities have
been reported to apply unethical means to win
contests.
© 2007 IUP . All Rights
Reserved
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