That The Hindu needed to release a bunch of ads proclaiming their superiority as a newspaper over The Times of India is shameful. The fact that they did so in a manner most unimaginative on too many levels makes their issue of the advertisements ghastly, distasteful and a metaphorical slap across the gleaming faces of the very internet user who is sharing, liking and commenting about how 'cool' these are.
In my first year at MICA, the coolest guy I will ever know and call a friend told me about how his dissertation was about the future of the print industry. His inference, based on research, was that in this modern day and age, the fact that people employ newspapers for reasons other than just getting the news, is the reason that print will never die. That people, no matter what colour iPad they get, will never take it to the loo in the morning, for fear of shitting all over themselves if & when they drop said iPad into the commode, like a million now-defunct cellphones. That they need newspapers, not only to perform their daily bodily duties in the morning, but also, to wrap things like shoes and sandals in, when traveling, or to wipe the dust off their expensive boots when they're just about to go into the boardroom for that most important meeting, or, at worst, to crush their weed in. There is also the wee bit about revenue through advertising for a newspaper that is the major source of income for any serious print media business, which means that as long as there are local businesses, there will forever be local newspapers.
So when I read & saw the millions sharing the advertisements, it meant that I was going to have to write this blog-post, if not to put forth what I think was right, then at least as a critique of what the print media, and allied advertising has come to mean for middle class India.
The Hindu's advertising strategy with the campaign against the Times' predilection for all things movies is pathetic. To start with, let's try and contextualize this.
The Hindu is a newspaper based in South India. South India is a classic example of a market that is media isolated on multiple levels, a fact that everyone, ranging from politicians, perverse parodists in the performing arts, print media barons and people in the streets, have made use of to form a cult that will have you believe that South India is the vanguard of culture, progress and spices in India. By contrast, the Times of India is a media conglomerate headquartered in a building called 'The Times of India' building, in South Bombay, that vanguard of all things scantily clad and/or moving fast. Given that statesmanship has entirely disappeared from Indian polity, clearly, neither newspaper has done a very good job of being a newspaper, and to criticize the Times, a company that literally, owns the entire distribution chain that comes with being a snazzy newspaper, replete with websites, allied press issues, glitzy events and full page ad-spreads, for playing to the gallery and being a Page 3 newspaper, is like calling the pretty girl dirty names in class, because, well, she's pretty. For those who're wondering what my problem is, by now - The Hindu's advertisements do precisely that, and that's where my problems just about begin.
If right now, you go here, and check the ads out again, you will be able to visualize my arguments much better. The Hindu's campaign essentially begins by telling you that there are things you should be concerned with, apart from you know, the 'glamorous' stuff, and that's about where the 'good' in the campaigns grinds to a halt. That the campaign goes on to tell you, in a manner that is beyond bland, at least on the all powerful internet, that to read the right stuff, you need to read the Hindu, is a pathetic attempt at a newspaper trying to tell its customers, "Hey! We're a newspaper that tells you news."
If you still don't get the problem here, let me articulate it better so you understand. Unless you're an Anna fan.
How would you feel if, even without the little or no educated 'debate' that goes into political debates on TV in India, Anna Hazare just marched into the Prime Minister's Office, slaps him across the face, as is in fashion these days, and tells him - "Dude, fuck you. I think I'm the better Prime Minister.", all this while 'live' news cameras are rolling? Would you share that video, with the gusto and without the thought, that you share and propagate the Hindu's campaign? Because, in its barest essence, with this campaign, the Hindu is trying to get you to buy their newspaper, by slapping the Times for being the Times, and telling you that they're better, without actually proving anything through their advertising and/or content.
If your newspaper is indeed better than the Times, the people who read it will tell you, by subscribing to it. Again, and again, and again. That you need to tell very same people that your newspaper is better than the Times because you said some clever things, is worse than trying to turn your lesbian friend into a female heterosexual, because you don't think you like girls that much anymore.
The problem with this campaign, goes deeper: that's not advertising. I was told, advertising is a way to tell the consumer to buy your product. That it was a way, to attract a customer into believing that your product fulfills a deeper need, without which the customer might not find as much happiness. Of course, advertising has evolved, and now, with the internet offering complete recreation of a board game as complex as Monopoly in the real world scenario of London, that the Hindu chose to merely put up a few .jpegs of their print ad online is ridiculing the Indian internet user and advertiser to the point after which there is indeed no return. They couldn't link an intelligent act to their intelligent stand? Couldn't think of incorporating a Facebook page into the whole thing, at least some-place where like minded fools would come and leave forever the proof that is needed to validate the Hindu's claims? They couldn't think of sounding a little less like the pretentious and yuppie college educated fools who want you to think like them? Like the Cola wars on TV advertising in the late 90s last century, the Hindu's advertising reeks of desperation to overtake a clearly stronger opponent, not by taking them on in the field and recreating another David v. Goliath, but by calling Goliath names from the top of the Pyramids of Despair, hoping that he doesn't figure out a way to climb up and bring David down. That the Hindu thinks no one will notice the irony of an advertisement that says 'Sense. Not Sensational.' is clearly an indication of the low opinion that those media barons down south have, of the people that read their newspapers. Or that the Hindu didn't realize that if this was a conversation with the Times, the necessary and sufficient reply to - 'Also has pages 1,2,4,5,6,7...' would simply be 'So do we, and more!.', only points to the bankruptcy of good ideas, and of good people to implement them that this country currently faces.
Now, I'm not saying the Times is a great newspaper, or that the Hindu is a bad one. I'm not even asking you to buy newspapers anymore, because they're redundant in the process of applying thought in the age of the internetz. That in these Times of instant gratification, puns intended throughout the phrase there, no one who considers themselves on the cutting edge of any thought likes to read their news the next morning, that by the time the newspapers trickle in with their 'views' and 'counter views' and 'opinion', the matter that was food for thought yesterday, has already been digested, and is probably on its way out as you tuck the newspaper under your armpit and rush into the facilities for a vicious dump.
'Gimmickry' is a funny word. It's funny because it has an 'immi' in the middle of it and a 'c' and a 'k' and an 'r' and a 'y' at the end, and that there is really no other word for it, the reason being that 'gimmickry' is an ancient concept, probably born in the mind of the least intelligent Greek-Roman orators of yore, around when he lost the argument from his grasp, and came up with something he thought was clever in an entertainment sort of a way, and peddled it to try to divert the Senate's attention from the fact that he had nothing of note to say. The Hindu's campaign is thinly veiled gimmickry at best, and a slap across the faces of everyone who read those advertisements at worst.
Last I checked, a newspaper was supposed to tell you nothing but what happened, and leave you at the doorstep of 'thought', and in this post-modern world where you can wear a hat in classrooms and expect people to look the other way, there is no singular right way of doing the same. The fact that the Hindu has had to resort to repeated below the belt kicks to get over their inferiority complex when it comes to the Times is as pitiable as the myriad sets of breasts that the Times uses to lure the repressed Indian to read their paper.
In my first year at MICA, the coolest guy I will ever know and call a friend told me about how his dissertation was about the future of the print industry. His inference, based on research, was that in this modern day and age, the fact that people employ newspapers for reasons other than just getting the news, is the reason that print will never die. That people, no matter what colour iPad they get, will never take it to the loo in the morning, for fear of shitting all over themselves if & when they drop said iPad into the commode, like a million now-defunct cellphones. That they need newspapers, not only to perform their daily bodily duties in the morning, but also, to wrap things like shoes and sandals in, when traveling, or to wipe the dust off their expensive boots when they're just about to go into the boardroom for that most important meeting, or, at worst, to crush their weed in. There is also the wee bit about revenue through advertising for a newspaper that is the major source of income for any serious print media business, which means that as long as there are local businesses, there will forever be local newspapers.
So when I read & saw the millions sharing the advertisements, it meant that I was going to have to write this blog-post, if not to put forth what I think was right, then at least as a critique of what the print media, and allied advertising has come to mean for middle class India.
The Hindu's advertising strategy with the campaign against the Times' predilection for all things movies is pathetic. To start with, let's try and contextualize this.
The Hindu is a newspaper based in South India. South India is a classic example of a market that is media isolated on multiple levels, a fact that everyone, ranging from politicians, perverse parodists in the performing arts, print media barons and people in the streets, have made use of to form a cult that will have you believe that South India is the vanguard of culture, progress and spices in India. By contrast, the Times of India is a media conglomerate headquartered in a building called 'The Times of India' building, in South Bombay, that vanguard of all things scantily clad and/or moving fast. Given that statesmanship has entirely disappeared from Indian polity, clearly, neither newspaper has done a very good job of being a newspaper, and to criticize the Times, a company that literally, owns the entire distribution chain that comes with being a snazzy newspaper, replete with websites, allied press issues, glitzy events and full page ad-spreads, for playing to the gallery and being a Page 3 newspaper, is like calling the pretty girl dirty names in class, because, well, she's pretty. For those who're wondering what my problem is, by now - The Hindu's advertisements do precisely that, and that's where my problems just about begin.
If right now, you go here, and check the ads out again, you will be able to visualize my arguments much better. The Hindu's campaign essentially begins by telling you that there are things you should be concerned with, apart from you know, the 'glamorous' stuff, and that's about where the 'good' in the campaigns grinds to a halt. That the campaign goes on to tell you, in a manner that is beyond bland, at least on the all powerful internet, that to read the right stuff, you need to read the Hindu, is a pathetic attempt at a newspaper trying to tell its customers, "Hey! We're a newspaper that tells you news."
If you still don't get the problem here, let me articulate it better so you understand. Unless you're an Anna fan.
How would you feel if, even without the little or no educated 'debate' that goes into political debates on TV in India, Anna Hazare just marched into the Prime Minister's Office, slaps him across the face, as is in fashion these days, and tells him - "Dude, fuck you. I think I'm the better Prime Minister.", all this while 'live' news cameras are rolling? Would you share that video, with the gusto and without the thought, that you share and propagate the Hindu's campaign? Because, in its barest essence, with this campaign, the Hindu is trying to get you to buy their newspaper, by slapping the Times for being the Times, and telling you that they're better, without actually proving anything through their advertising and/or content.
If your newspaper is indeed better than the Times, the people who read it will tell you, by subscribing to it. Again, and again, and again. That you need to tell very same people that your newspaper is better than the Times because you said some clever things, is worse than trying to turn your lesbian friend into a female heterosexual, because you don't think you like girls that much anymore.
The problem with this campaign, goes deeper: that's not advertising. I was told, advertising is a way to tell the consumer to buy your product. That it was a way, to attract a customer into believing that your product fulfills a deeper need, without which the customer might not find as much happiness. Of course, advertising has evolved, and now, with the internet offering complete recreation of a board game as complex as Monopoly in the real world scenario of London, that the Hindu chose to merely put up a few .jpegs of their print ad online is ridiculing the Indian internet user and advertiser to the point after which there is indeed no return. They couldn't link an intelligent act to their intelligent stand? Couldn't think of incorporating a Facebook page into the whole thing, at least some-place where like minded fools would come and leave forever the proof that is needed to validate the Hindu's claims? They couldn't think of sounding a little less like the pretentious and yuppie college educated fools who want you to think like them? Like the Cola wars on TV advertising in the late 90s last century, the Hindu's advertising reeks of desperation to overtake a clearly stronger opponent, not by taking them on in the field and recreating another David v. Goliath, but by calling Goliath names from the top of the Pyramids of Despair, hoping that he doesn't figure out a way to climb up and bring David down. That the Hindu thinks no one will notice the irony of an advertisement that says 'Sense. Not Sensational.' is clearly an indication of the low opinion that those media barons down south have, of the people that read their newspapers. Or that the Hindu didn't realize that if this was a conversation with the Times, the necessary and sufficient reply to - 'Also has pages 1,2,4,5,6,7...' would simply be 'So do we, and more!.', only points to the bankruptcy of good ideas, and of good people to implement them that this country currently faces.
Now, I'm not saying the Times is a great newspaper, or that the Hindu is a bad one. I'm not even asking you to buy newspapers anymore, because they're redundant in the process of applying thought in the age of the internetz. That in these Times of instant gratification, puns intended throughout the phrase there, no one who considers themselves on the cutting edge of any thought likes to read their news the next morning, that by the time the newspapers trickle in with their 'views' and 'counter views' and 'opinion', the matter that was food for thought yesterday, has already been digested, and is probably on its way out as you tuck the newspaper under your armpit and rush into the facilities for a vicious dump.
'Gimmickry' is a funny word. It's funny because it has an 'immi' in the middle of it and a 'c' and a 'k' and an 'r' and a 'y' at the end, and that there is really no other word for it, the reason being that 'gimmickry' is an ancient concept, probably born in the mind of the least intelligent Greek-Roman orators of yore, around when he lost the argument from his grasp, and came up with something he thought was clever in an entertainment sort of a way, and peddled it to try to divert the Senate's attention from the fact that he had nothing of note to say. The Hindu's campaign is thinly veiled gimmickry at best, and a slap across the faces of everyone who read those advertisements at worst.
Last I checked, a newspaper was supposed to tell you nothing but what happened, and leave you at the doorstep of 'thought', and in this post-modern world where you can wear a hat in classrooms and expect people to look the other way, there is no singular right way of doing the same. The fact that the Hindu has had to resort to repeated below the belt kicks to get over their inferiority complex when it comes to the Times is as pitiable as the myriad sets of breasts that the Times uses to lure the repressed Indian to read their paper.
7 comments:
You raise a very good point. However, there are few who think like you; most love this sort of banter and comparison, however blatant it may be.
In my MBA days, I used to argue with our professor of advertising. She said refutative ads sell, while my argument was it being unethical & unimaginative. While she agreed, I had to agree when she said it sells. People love comparisons. Remember the KF vs Jet vs Bus vs Railways ad? And the Tide vs Rin ad? And the P&G vs HUL shampoo stuff? Sorry I dont remember their names :P
Nice to see someone feel the same. I was starting to think I'm a dullard for not liking something the world feasts on.
Agreed with the above.
While the campaign as a whole is in definite poor taste, the video they've posted today even more so, it is nonetheless one that will draw attention and lead to sales.
Isn't that all that matters to the proponents ?
Remember the Cola wars too, wherin there were such huge campaigns without there being even a major differenciating factor between the two involved.
Guess you dont know this but TOI started the below the belt attacks on Hindu a year ago.. Chk the man sleeping ad from TOI.. This is Hindu's answer.. Albeit a bad, immature one.. An answer not befitting a newspaper the stature of Hindu.. But an answer all the same.. On what relevance newspapers have today, you need to travel the B-towns, the rural areas.. Our reality is limited by our surroundings, my friend
Vishal - The dullards shall wither away in self-loathing while the meek inherit the earth and run it to the ground. Also, I can never remember which company makes which shampoo either!
Jo - Thank you for agreeing. I feel much better now. :)
Kunjie - I know about those ads too. And I've extrapolated my arguments (to the best of my ability) from whatever I could discern from the intersections of the varied realities of the world we're living in.
I agree that newspapers have a greater role to play than what I've portrayed here, and that in rural India or in B-towns (I am from a B-town) priorities are different, and they ought to be.
Thanks for disagreeing with parts of it though. I can imagine Nisarg & you, sitting in the HT office and smirking behind the scenes while all of this is playing out on Facebook. :P
Very well written Kanabar!!!
Nice analysis... I'd like to read your friend's dissertation.My 2 cents worth of ranting:
Both the papers have been around for more than a century now, and are still popular - TOI more so, and it isn't hard to see why. Unfortunately sensationalism is dished out because that's what sells and thats what the majority wants to see.
This is somewhat akin to the Linux vs Windows arguments in college - most of the proponents of linux were people who perhaps didn't even know why it was powerful and how to tweak it for your needs - it was something like "I use Ubuntu on my PC, you use windows, hence I'm cooler than you." The Hindu in its retort is catering to this customer psyche - "I read Hindu, hence I'm intellectual".
I see nothing wrong in it, The Hindu is a business, not a charity, and needs to advertise. When a new paper (TOI) enters there their domain and tries to wean away their customers by an ad that says "TOI is cooler than the Hindu, if you read the TOI you will be cool too", it is but natural that the Hindu remind their customers in some way that "The Hindu is a intelligent paper. If you read it you'll be intelligent too. What would you rather be, cool or intelligent?". The analogy would be the same in the way Ruturaj and Karan Gupta (bless their souls) used to publicise Linux amongst the VNIT public - not many got what they meant anyway, but still everyone had linux on their PCs.
YTV, nice of you to drop by with the counterpoint.
I agree, completely, because in essence we're on the same side of the argument. It is when ideology clashes with idea that a problem is seen in light.
The Hindu took a cheap shot. The Times Of India got away easily, really. The riposte was too easy for witty copywriters to conjure in South Bombay, while the Hindu came off as off the pace: Something that you can't really afford as a media house, especially among educated public.
Fin. :)
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