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Shortly after business tycoon Cyrus Mistry passed away in a tragic road accident, the Union Road, Transport, and Highway ministry has rolled out a campaign focussing on promoting air bags in passenger vehicles.

Although the ad has been made in a setting which is relatable to majority of Indians it has started inviting criticism from netizens as it allegedly ends up encouraging ‘dowry culture’. The spot​, tweeted by Union Minister of Road Transport & Highways Nitin Gadkari and featuring Akshay Kumar, shows an emotional father at his daughter's 'bidaai'. Kumar, who plays a policeman in the ad, makes a comment that the couple is in a car that has "just two airbags” and hence not safe.

The scene cuts to the couple walking out of the car, and the arrival of a new car. The groom is now seen counting the number of airbags in the new car to six. There’s explicit implication that the car belongs to the groom and is not a gift from the bride's parents which can be dubbed as dowry.

"You should smile now that your daughter is safe," Kumar tells the bride's father, after the car has been changed.

The video has over one million views on Twitter alone. The advertisement has elicited intense responses from the netizens who are slamming it for promoting the dowry culture.

<blockquote class="twitter-tweet"><p lang="en" dir="ltr">This advt clearly promotes dowry AND provides free publicity for expensive cars. Somebody should tell <a href="https://twitter.com/OfficeOfNG?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">@OfficeOfNG</a> that each extra airbag hikes up the price of the car!</p>&mdash; RD (@DharRenuka) <a href="https://twitter.com/DharRenuka/status/1569193739914219521?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">September 12, 2022</a></blockquote> <script async src="https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script>

<blockquote class="twitter-tweet"><p lang="en" dir="ltr">Will <a href="https://twitter.com/akshaykumar?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">@akshaykumar</a> come to court to say dt car was just a <a href="https://twitter.com/hashtag/Gift?src=hash&amp;ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">#Gift</a> &amp; not dowry if <a href="https://twitter.com/hashtag/Marriage?src=hash&amp;ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">#Marriage</a> fails<br>We all know misuse of IPC 498A <a href="https://twitter.com/hashtag/DomesticViolence?src=hash&amp;ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">#DomesticViolence</a> <a href="https://twitter.com/AnubhavMohanty_?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">@AnubhavMohanty_</a> <a href="https://twitter.com/asliyoyo?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">@asliyoyo</a> are not even spared frm <a href="https://twitter.com/hashtag/BiasedLaws?src=hash&amp;ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">#BiasedLaws</a><br>Meanwhile unionminister promoting <a href="https://twitter.com/hashtag/marriagegifts?src=hash&amp;ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">#marriagegifts</a> to <a href="https://twitter.com/hashtag/PapaKiPari?src=hash&amp;ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">#PapaKiPari</a> <a href="https://twitter.com/hashtag/Burden?src=hash&amp;ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">#Burden</a></p>&mdash; Poonam (@MyNation_PM) <a href="https://twitter.com/MyNation_PM/status/1569343994047660035?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">September 12, 2022</a></blockquote> <script async src="https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script>

Some netizens also complained about the condition of roads in the country that also lead to accidents.

<blockquote class="twitter-tweet"><p lang="en" dir="ltr">How about safe roads first? And corruption free RTOs that issue licenses without tests or without visiting RTO? And traffic cops focusing on violation of traffic rules and not collecting fines for PUC etc? Promoting expensive cars is not a solution.</p>&mdash; Twinkle Twinkle (@HowIWunder) <a href="https://twitter.com/HowIWunder/status/1568822833345884162?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">September 11, 2022</a></blockquote> <script async src="https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script>

Opposition parties also jumped in to criticise the spot. 

"Is the government spending money to promote the safety aspect of a car or promoting the evil and criminal act of dowry through this ad," asked Shiv Sena MP Priyanka Chaturvedi on Twitter.

Just days before, the latest National Crime Records Bureau (NCRB) report, which was released on 29 August, showed 6,753 women losing their lives to dowry-related harassment in 2021. The same set of data, for 2020, revealed that 19 Indian women died due to dowry harassment every single day.

"Actually dowry is a bad word. Even a hint of it in advertising is considered insensitive. This is an advertising  faux pax!," says brand expert Harish Bijoor, founder, Harish Bijoor Consults Inc.

Naresh Gupta, co-founder and chief strategy officer, Bang In The Middle says that when he first saw the ad, he found the context to be linear and over reliant on Akshay Kumar.

“However, the second viewing does raise the issue of dowry and everything else that the netizens are saying. And there is then a bigger issue that no one seems to be addressing. Why should I have a choice to buy car with just two airbags? Make it legal to have six airbags, and don’t release any ads. More than dowry, it don’t like sarkar (government ) mocking citizens,” he points out.

“…when I was buying a car in the segment that I chose, it has all the features what the dad in the ad says - automatic, music system, six speakers, but six airbags were not on offer. So, it’s a bit of a downer as an ad when customers don’t even have an easy choice in the market,” Gupta notes.

Gupta mentions two impactful global ads from The Transport Accident Commission (TAC), Australia urging people to rethink the speeds they drive at.

<iframe width="560" height="315" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/3noalme3jXM" title="YouTube video player" frameborder="0" allow="accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture" allowfullscreen></iframe>

“I would have loved to see a campaign that said “ask for 6” That would have been so much more impactful,” he concludes.

Govt’s road safety ad slammed for promoting dowry

When Alia Bhatt, Vijay Varma, Shefali Shah starrer Darlings hit Netflix, the advertising and marketing community noticed some not-so-subtle brand plugs. We spotted brand cameos from Kama Ayurveda, Milton, 24 Mantra Organic, Daawat, Tide and Eva Deo, in the movie that’s set in a lower-middle class household.

In one scene Shah is seen giving Bhatt a champi with luxury brand Kama Ayurveda’s oil. In another scene, Bhatt is seen adding a layer of Veeba’s ketchup on her pao omelet. Many viewers were left scratching their heads while making the connections. 

Sahil Batra, a marketing and growth consultant at Tenzai Systems, took to LinkedIn to write, “Kama must have thought: Alia is a perfect personality to associate ourselves with, and the audience of the show is our audience too! Looks like a perfect place to advertise ourselves. If you know Kama’s pricing, you would know how just the opposite is true.”

While one set of experts think these brand promotions were not out of place, another set has a different take.

Independent communications consultant Karthik Srinivasan says the admirers of Bhatt — who would watch the movie — are the main target audience of the brand. “Kama Ayurveda or Veeba may seem out of the reach of the lower-middle class settings of the characters seen in the movie. But it is being streamed on Netflix, the most expensive over-the-top (OTT) platform in India, with the least number of subscribers when compared to the other streaming platforms,” he explains.

Targeting and segmentation are the two factors hailed as the cornerstone of effective marketing. Lloyd Mathias, an angel investor and business strategist, observes that creating content relevant to their tastes and preferences is the most critical, irrespective of the medium of marketing.

<strong>Do consumers spot brands over popcorn?</strong>

Audiences, however, can identify brand misfits. Therefore, it is important for brands to pick the right scripts. According to Mathias, when viewers spot their favourite movie stars engaging with brands in a film, it develops a strong sense of belongingness. 

Besides films, another avenue marketers have used for decades is music to integrate their brands into. BC Web Wise’s VP - Media, Krishal Mehta, believes brand integration in music videos have wider reach. He further says, using this also pumps up the brand’s screen time presence and chances of viewers consuming that piece of content again is high.

Ajit Narayan, chief marketing officer of brand advocacy platform Socxo, says the discussion around brand mistarget is high because of the rise of digital content consumption. Viewers can go back to the content any time they want. It becomes a point of discussion of their social timelines too. Also, brands don’t plan mistargets. He explains, “One has to note that, in all media, there is wastage and spillovers. But, that does not mean the media plan was skewed to incorrect audiences. It could also happen in the case of content selection, endorsements etc.”

<strong>Tips for brands</strong>

In a hyper social world, Mathias says the key element every brand must consider is to pay attention to the content creators, and match the demographics of their product with the people consuming the content.

Srinivasan has similar views. If the content is about lower-middle class Indians, the marketers should not predict the audiences to hail from the lower-middle class background. He supports his argument by stating a few examples. The recent ad for JioMart that featured Bollywood couple Deepika Padukone and Ranveer Singh. In the commercial, Singh and Padukone express their joy in saving some money when they buy groceries on JioMart. 

Srinivasan is of the opinion that enacting such roles in advertising is a grey zone. This is because advertising mixes fictional scripts along with factual claims about products and services. “Think about Akshay Kumar playing a doctor in the PolicyBazaar ad, who is making factual claims about the service. He is clearly not a doctor. He can surely play one in a film. But in an ad where he plays a doctor, should we take the acting part lightly, but take the product claims seriously?” he questions.

If a content creator hails from a particular town or a village, a lot of his followers will also belong to that segment who consume his or her videos or content. “Therefore, it makes sense for the brand to place the product that caters to that segment,” Mathias concludes. 


AKSHAY KUMAR