The Hindu Business Line : Why Indians love advertising

Informative: Forty per cent of all buyers in the wristwatches category are estimated to be first-time buyers who seek basic information about the category.

Harish Bhat

Eighty-six per cent of Indian consumers say that advertising provides good and useful information. In sharp contrast, only 50 per cent of Europeans agree.

Eighty-seven per cent of Indian consumers hold that advertising entertains them. Europeans are far more sceptical about the entertainment value of advertising. Globally, only 67 per cent of all consumers agree.

An overwhelming majority of Indian and global consumers, however, agree on two benefits of advertising: that it creates jobs, and funds sports and culture.

These are some key findings from the 2009 global survey of advertising commissioned by the World Federation of Advertisers and undertaken by AC Nielsen. Set against global surveys which have shown that consumer trust in advertising is low, this year& #8217;s survey is good news for Indian advertisers.

Over 80 per cent of all Indians perceive advertising as both informative and entertaining, and an equal number know that it creates valuable jobs and sponsorships.

But what should truly interest students of marketing communication is the marked difference in consumer perceptions between emerging markets such as India and developed markets such as Europe. While consumers in India, Latin America and Africa are very positive about the benefits of advertising, Europeans are the most hesitant. Why do Indian consumers see advertising as such a good source of information and entertainment, and what are the lessons here for Indian marketers?

Here are some hypotheses for why Indians find advertising so informative and entertaining. To begin with, unlike our European counterparts, a large majority of Indians are first-time buyers in several relevant product categories, particularly in the durables sector — as diverse as motorcycles, cars, homes, mutual funds, watches and mobile telephones.

In the industry sector which I am part of (wristwatches), a broad estimate is that in any given year, 40 per cent of all buyers are purchasing watches for the first time. When you are a first-time buyer, you are actively seeking a lot of basic information about the category, the product, and the brand choices available. Therefore, Indians pay far more attention to the information contained in advertisements, and hence perceive advertising as far more informative.

There is diminishing value in such information when you are a second or third-time buyer of any product category, which is a possible reason for the lower scores in Europe.

Second, advertising is possibly the only universally accessible method through which Indian consumers can access such information. Contrast this with Western countries, where consumers have wide access to alternate “non-advertisement-led” sources of obtaining information. For instance, with very affordable broadband Internet now available in over 90 per cent of all homes in most European countries, trawling the Net for product or brand-related information through community sites, critics’ reviews or users’ ratings, has possibly become far more convenient than obtaining information through advertising.

This may possibly be true in select segments in India, such as affluent, educated urbanites or college-going youth in large cities. But given that Internet penetration and usage are still at an incipient stage amongst middle-class adults and in semi-urban India, a large majority of Indians continue to depend on advertising as a primary source of product and brand information.

A third hypothesis why Indian consumers generally see advertising as a good information source is that an overwhelming majority of Indian advertising has centred around mid-market to premium products which cater to our large middle-class and upper-middle class consumers. Typically, advertising relating to these product classes focuses on key product characteristics, which is driven by our understanding of how value-conscious Indians make their buying decisions.

Compare this with the billboards or advertising you see in European cities, a large proportion of which focus on accessible luxury and luxury products, given the affluence of their populations. By their very nature, luxury products focus on sheer lifestyle and tend to shun product information including pricing. Is it any surprise then that Europeans find advertising less than informative?

A fourth reason for the high score on informativeness is that Indian advertising has by and large been a source of fair and reliable data. Advertising constantly runs the risk of hyperbole and exaggerated claims and counterclaims, and certainly there have been regrettable occasions in Indian advertising where imagination has triumphed over truth. But to the credit of our marketers and advertising agencies, we have mostly steered a good middle path which has ensured that Indian advertising continues to remain very credible in the eyes of our consumers.

It is, of course, excellent news for our marketers that 87 per cent of all Indian consumers also see advertising as being entertaining. This is a tribute to the creative teams in our advertisement agencies and how well they understand the pulse of our consumers. It is also a tribute to the creative risks that our marketers are willing to take, moving away from time-tested but the same-old-trite paths and exploring advertising which engages, provokes and surprises in many new ways. In doing so, advertising provides an amazing variety of roller-coaster voyages for our minds and hearts. In my view, a lot of European advertising is incredibly clever and sharp, but it does not encompass the wide range of emotions and thoughts which characterise Indian television commercials.

My foremost hypothesis for why Indian advertising retains this edge on entertainment is that advertising in our country has strong roots in the ever-popular and kaleidoscopic world of Indian cinema, which in turn owes its success to amazingly simple, powerful and engaging storytelling.

Bollywood (and its equally vibrant cousins in cities such as Chennai, Hyderabad and Kolkata) has always held the pulse and the imagination of the Indian masses, which explains why Indian cinema is so prolific and so wildly popular. As long as Indian advertising derives its inspiration and form from our cinema, we will continue to entertain our consumers. Indeed, it is encouraging to see that many of our foremost creative directors and producers of excellent advertising also have increasingly stronger links with the world of popular cinema.

To conclude, the findings of the WFA-Nielsen survey of how Indian consumers perceive advertising is encouraging for our marketing fraternity. This piece has advanced a few hypotheses on why Indians rate advertising more favourably than consumers on other continents, and why India continues to be a fertile garden for advertisers. As long as our marketers and agencies ensure that our advertising continues to be informative, reliable and entertaining, Indians are likely to embrace it in equal measure.

(The writer is Chief Operating Officer – Watches, Titan Industries Ltd, and a member of the Executive Committee of the Indian Society of Advertisers. These are his personal views.)

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