mnc ( cont )

this is just an addendum .

having posted the blog about  mnc yesterday , i didn't really want to add anything on the subject . but then i saw this outdoor campaign of sunsilk condioner/shampoo and i was amazed that companies like levers continue doing it with such impunity . and gullible consumers continue to fall or it .[ there was an old advertising adage that consumer is not a fool , she is your wife . ( then of course , somebody later modified that to say ' consumer is a fool  BECAUSE she is your wife ) ]

this campaign said " sunsilk challenge ! it makes your hair 2x softer in just 7 days . ". wow , what more can i ask for ( means not me personally , i don't have hair ) , till i read the small print in the same hoarding . it said " scientifically tested against non-conditioner shampoo ". aha !!! , comparing apples and oranges ? of course sunsilk will make your hair two times softer than NON -CONDITIONER shampoos .
why not go whole hog and say sunsilk makes your hair 16x softer ( compared to sand or charcoal or cement ) . this is funnier than anything i can write as a joke in bottoms up .
 i stand humbled !

another example of ethics that i had forgotten to mention .
mr sylvester dacunha , the founder chairman of dacunha  associates, who gave me my break in advertising and with whom i had the privilege of  sharing 15 years of  my advertising career ,  ( forgive him , he knew not what he did ) had a strict principle . ' tobacco is harmful to people and  we will never handle a tobacco advertising account ' . no matter how profitable it maybe , no matter how badly the agency needs the billing ,  we will not handle it . i have not met too many advertising people with this courage of conviction ( i myself don't have it ) .
sylvester dacunha had it.

multi national cheaters ( cont )

( there was some problem and only half blog got posted last time .)

.....mr darbari seth , once said that there were two types of  big  multinational corporates . thieves and dacoits . hindustan lever , he said were both . what they sell as premier products in india , they will not be allowed to sell in any western country . they sell sub-standard  products by creating attractive scientific sounding words and phrases which consumers don't understand and so believe completely . because  you only doubt what you understand . if you collect all the claims and slogans of levers products over the years and publish them as a book , it will be the biggest best-seller in the fiction category .  take the case of their annapurna salt . they happily claimed that , because its iodized it will improve your childs brain power , memory and resultantly he will do better in school . in one parliamentary word , its bullshit . salt is iodized because in some hilly parts of the country , peoples normal diet is deficient in iodine which causes goitre , thats all . those little traces of iodine in annapurna did not improve anything in your child;s brain . the only thing it improved was levers profitability .

their recent surf campaign is very honest though , 'dag achhey hotey hain ' , is right . but achhey hotey hain not for your clothes but for levers bottom line . nirma was so so much more honest and so much more cheap  ( or economical , as we are taught to say in advertising ) . but then levers is such a big international company , who would believe that they would lie blatantly .

take kellogs . they had an uphill task in india . to replace traditional indian breakfast with corn flakes . and they have done it quite successfully . so if they had to tell a few lies on the way , does it really matter ? . iron - shakti is , to say the least ,  the height of exaggeration . the little bit of iron in your bowlful of cornflakes does not sharpen your memory , your general knowledge or your intelligence . it only improves kellogs profits .

similarly eating nothing but two bowls of k cornflakes for two weeks ,  does not give your wife a slim , sexy , curvaceous figure of a bollywood starlet . the only figure it improves , is the one in kellogs balance sheet .

but then these are big multinationals , supposedly run by cream of professional managers . how can we distrust  them ? they are above your cheap indian baniya /marwadi / sindhi mentality , aren't they ?

in law we have a doctrine of ' buyer beware '.

follow that . 

Multi National Cheaters

Indians , like a majority of people from a large part of the non-Western world , haven't lost that white- skin- sahibs- are -superior complex . it extends to this deep-rooted belief that they are better than us , that foreign companies are more honest , hugely more ethical and far more trustworthy .

nothing , absolutely nothing can be further from the truth .
 i am  not saying this out of some great sense of patriotism , or a great desire  to knock everything foreign.
 I have had this great fortune of  working with some of the most honest and upright people and companies  in India, and they are all Indians.
a few  Scenarios.
 when  amul was Launching India's first milkshakes, we had found out that the most popular flavors were strawberry and chocolate. when dr kurien  was told about this, his instant reaction was “I have access to your chocolate  throughout the year, but don't have access to real strawberries. and I will not launch an artificial strawberry flavor, no matter how successful it will become".  so we launched chocolate and ilaichi  flavors. ethics  winning over profit.

 When Mr r.k. krishnakumar  was the managing director of tata tea ,  in a  presentation of a  media plan for a new campaign of tata tea ,  he was told that although getting spots on mahabharat (  which at that time was the most popular, must–watch program on Indian television) was extremely difficult, we will  manage with our contacts in doordarshan .  his immediate reaction was, if there is any underhand dealing or bribery involved in getting those spots, then he is not interested. not only that but if he ever found out that we had resorted to some such dealings, he will sack the agency regardless of how much he liked the creative work produced.
  ethics  winning over profit.
 when we were launching India's first iodized salt, tata salt , mr darbari seth ,  but then chairman of tata chemicals said , "  while  we're doing this campaign to sell packaged salt, we have to release a campaign to educate people that the usage of  salt  should be minimized in their cooking, because too much salt is bad for the  health .  as a responsible corporate citizen, we owe it to the people. Imagine India's biggest salt company telling people to eat less salt .
 ethics  winning over  profit.

 while  working on a new advertising campaign for vice vajradanti , i pointed out to  mr gajanan pendharkar , the chairman of vicco ,  that as a regular  user of his toothpaste, I find that sometimes the paste is too watery and  can something be done about that.  his instant response was the consistency of the paste depends on the water content in the bark of one of the ingredients, and it will  always differ from batch to batch. And he will not add anything artificial to get uniform consistency. In fact he went ahead to advise me that in every advertising created for this company, strict attention  should be given to being honest and not claim anything that the product does not have or deliver. When the price  of  sandalwood oil  became so high that the entire pricing of vicco  turmeric and sandalwood  cream would go haywire unless he switched to using artificial sandalwood essence  ,  he chose to launch a cream without Sandalwood oil and proudly called it so.
 ethics  winning over profit.

 now let's look at some of the biggest international names in business. mr darbari seth