Creating through Creativity

By Girish Jayaraman 5 October 2008 431 views 2 Comments

Co-written With Sanjay Tourani

The Indian advertising industry is often credited with being one of the most creative in the world. Advertising agencies often strive to come up with something new and unique in order to capture the people’s imagination. This is true of print as well as television commercials. India is an incredibly diverse country – the advertising industry has to cater to a wide and divergent variety of tastes.

Global brands such as GM and McDonald’s have realized the distinctive nature of the Indian advertising market. Their advertisements are made by local agencies and are rarely aired outside the Indian subcontinent. Pepsi and Coca Cola battle it out in an Indian version of the cola wars on the airwaves. Each company has learned to use the professional rivalry between popular Hindi movie stars such as Shahrukh Khan and Aamir Khan in order to develop brand loyalties. Television commercials have also launched the careers of countless Indian celebrities – Preity Zinta became popular through her appearances for Perk and Liril; AR Rahman scored the jingles for several iconic brands including Titan and Leo Coffee before making it big in films.

So what is it that sets Indian commercials apart? We thought we would bring to you a small selection of advertisements that have caught the imagination of the nation in the past.

Airtel delivers a powerful message in one of its earliest commercials in what was to become a very popular series:

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Who can forget this one? Amaron’s famous commercial became a sensation and set the trend for modern commercials with animated figures:

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Indian ODI captain MS Dhoni received a record amount of money for endorsing Pepsi. This commercial parodies the star crazy South Indian film industry:

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