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Creativity, Innovation & Cultural Economy

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 Ankit Nalotia - Founder, Mo MantraPapyrus was the most primitive form of sales and advertising device used in the past on walls and block of rocks alike. Rock paintings carried the baton forward in the times ahead, but with the coming of ages, the metaphors and the deep-seated words faded away giving room to more and more scope for symbols and icons that would connote the advertisement of a trade or a profession in a supermarket, this meant that a razor blade drawn on a tree bark would suffice the advertising of a man with the profession of a barber. After that, advertising just got complex because it aimed at being the most simple message man would ever want to learn.

In 17th century the advent of print sought in more requirements for advertisements and then there was the information overload of the 21st century. A paradigmatic shift from the frugal to the affluent. But, it would be really interesting, to study the advertising practices in vogue at present.

An interesting phenomena that has recently stormed both the digital and mainstream broadcast market is the attempt of the advertisers to be more outspokenly extrovert in action and expositions. The ads, in other words are breaking the shackles of old school stereotypes. Let us take some cases in point.

The Max Life Insurance ads in this year had fleshed out an extended story idea where a character Adi takes the onus of playing the cosmopolitan husband to his wife. He sits beside his wife and gives her driving lessons. The sweetness speaks deep through the veins of Indian ethos, but also communicates largely to a mass that had overthrown the patriarchal mindsets of our nation. The ‘Hum mai hai Hero’ song from Hero Moto Corp,is another example of smart
practices by advertisers these days to promote their products with help of a music video. The Hero song made at the time of their split with Honda, received a great applauding, generating a sufficient amount of brand connect.

Advertising should percolate every single strata of the society to the core,until it inculcates and serves the purpose of why a brand was required to be made


But on the other hand, our advertisements are largely driven by the choices of the individuals who make their decisions on the basis of their cultural background. So, a women's day BlueStone advertisement involves gossip queens and creepy guys in the same advertisement, where women and men both do not come out of their stereotypes. Men who were ogling at a woman calling her a 'hottie', gets to magnify his fantasies many times when he gets to know that all woman with a ring is not definitely engaged.

People spend money when and where they feel good – Walt Disney. It is evident that cultural economy guides advertisers to blare out loud slogans like, ‘Men will be men’, and glorify a Bollywood star promoting his promiscuous real life nature for the sake of a condom promotion; whose ads left much little for the implicit imaginations. Further more, the glaringly sexist Jack and Jones advertisement where a 'macho man' picks a girl (from his office) up in his shoulders should outright be unpardonable by a society that does not objectify woman and more over, shots out loud for equality.

David Throsby had feared this scenario and had proposed a sustainable formula where the current generation should identify with the responsibilities of the future and that should be coupled with a fair distribution of cultural resources amongst the members of the society. Thanks to the participative audience of the online generation that each and every single ad that stink and reek of the stench of the claustrophobic stereotypes has been trolled and smeared down under. The cultural economy has been vibrant today and this dynamism is the key area for the role players of tomorrow, the entrepreneurs of today. This includes the start up honchos and the participatory audience as well.

The modern mantra for success, breathes and respires its fresh lease of life in an honest effort to integrate the grand heritage of culture with a co axial focus on technological bandwidth. Mo Mantra alleviates and cracks open the tough nut dilemma of not living up to one's mirror image and being able to look into one's eyes.

Advertising should percolate every single strata of the society to the core, until it inculcates and serves the purpose: why a brand was required to be made. A responsibility well shared is always and always two jobs done already.