The Influence Of Cigarette Advertising In India

We all remember the hugely popular ad campaign by Maruti in which Amelia Johnson, a fictional character depicted as a woman aviation pioneer lands in Mumbai and is interviewed and asked about her aircraft. She says, 'It's a super marine, with 300 horsepower radial engine and a 1000-mile range’. A member of the audience then interrupts her to ask, 'Kitna deti hai'. The question is then translated to Johnson, who's left stunned - she doesn't have an answer. The film ends with a voiceover that says, "For a country obsessed with mileage, Maruti Suzuki makes India's most fuel efficient cars.”

Following the lead, many other companies including Honda, Toyota and Renault tried to rebrand themselves as fuel efficient cars.

Creating products for Indians

Legal restrictions prohibit direct promotion of liquor and cigarettes in India. Hence companies try to bypass it by using surrogate advertising. Whenever a scene involving cigarette smoking is shown in a movie or advertisement, “Cigarette smoking is injurious to health” is flashed on the screen. Wills Lifestyle and Kingfisher airlines are another way to subtly promote the cigarette brand Wills from ITC, and Kingfisher beer from United Breweries. To overcome the difficulties posed by the government, brands have now turned to social media for promoting their products, where there are no defined restrictions on promotions. In the previous year, Smirnoff, the vodka brand of Diageo, tweeted from its handle @SmirnoffIndia - “You don’t need an occasion to gift someone gold! Treat your friends to the royal taste of Smirnoff Gold today”. Similarly, Kingfisher also tweeted “We want to know the story! Tweet to #HowIMetMyKFBeer right away!” to its 44,000 followers. Today, all the top liquor brands like Diageo, United Breweries, SAB Miller, Carlsberg are active on Facebook and Twitter. Social Media, it seems, has solved a big problem for surrogate marketing in