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ADVERTISING IN BRITISH INDIA

Updated 03 Apr, 2018 03:24pm
Aurora
In this extract, Douglas Haynes writes about the rise of professional advertising in British India.
A calender print published by Oriental Calender Mfg. Co., Calcutta, meant to promote a cigarette brand among the upper strata of society. From the Collection of of Priya Paul. Courtesy: Civic Archives, New Delhi.
A calender print published by Oriental Calender Mfg. Co., Calcutta, meant to promote a cigarette brand among the upper strata of society. From the Collection of of Priya Paul. Courtesy: Civic Archives, New Delhi.

In the early 1920s, global businesses relied on advertisements drawn up in Europe or America without consideration of the values of Indian consumers. Such marketing methods increasingly seemed inadequate to many global businesses. These firms turned to advertising specialists headquartered in India’s larger cities.

An ad for Bata Shoes, published in Art in Industry, Vol. 1, No. 4, 1947. Courtesy: Visual Archives. .
An ad for Bata Shoes, published in Art in Industry, Vol. 1, No. 4, 1947. Courtesy: Visual Archives. .

Such specialists worked under three different kinds of arrangements. First, they could be members of advertising firms that were setting up offices in India, such as J. Walter Thompson, which came to India in 1929 to promote General Motors’ automobiles, but soon took up a number of smaller accounts. Second, advertisers could work for agency firms that managed the distribution of the products manufactured by their clients.

For instance, the makers of Ovaltine hired the firm of James Wright as their agent in India; this firm designed and placed many thousands of ads in Indian newspapers. Finally, some professional advertisers worked as in-house specialists for the biggest businesses, such as Lever Brothers.

.An ad for the Karachi Electric Supply Corporation, the precursor to K-Electric, which came into being in September 1913. Courtesy: The Daily Gazette – Karachi's Resident's Directory, 1932.
.An ad for the Karachi Electric Supply Corporation, the precursor to K-Electric, which came into being in September 1913. Courtesy: The Daily Gazette – Karachi's Resident's Directory, 1932.

Archival research combined with an analysis of advertisements suggests that professional advertisers conceived of the Indian market in the three broad segments. First, there were the European expatriates and wealthy Indian consumers, who may have been small in number but who had high disposable incomes. Advertisements targeting these buyers were printed in the English-language press, such as The Times of India. Second there were the middle-class consumers, a much larger category of people but with more modest earnings and with significant anxieties about liberal spending on commodities. They could be reached through vernacular newspapers and English-language papers with nationalist reputations, as well as through billboards and cinema ads. Finally, there were the rural population and the urban under-classes.

Excerpted from Marg, March-June 2017: Brand Name Advertising & The Making of the Modern Conjugal Family.

First published in THE DAWN OF ADVERTISING IN PAKISTAN (1947-2017), a Special Report published by DAWN on March 31, 2018.

Advertising in British India

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