Nawabs, Nudes, Noodles

by Ambi Parameswaran

  Unlike the West, in India, religiosity is very much alive and kicking – for more read my book, For God’s Sake. Marketing, which was till the ’80s fighting shy of embracing religion, is now doing it with a vengeance. Festivals that were little known till a decade ago have become national phenomena. This trend will continue and I am sure advertising agencies will continue to mine new ideas from the rich festival calendars of India. And I am sure in their own way these ads will contribute to what is unique about our country: multitude of colours, celebrations and contrasts.

  Tan Ki Shakti, Man Ki Shakti

  MY FIRST JOB was at a then relatively unknown advertising agency called Rediffusion Advertising, started by Arun Nanda – he topped his batch at IIM-A; the first batch – and Ajit Balakrishnan – IIM-C alumnus who went on to set up India’s first online portal, Rediff.com. I was excited to meet my new colleagues and one of them was Rajiv Agarwal, an IIM-A graduate. He too had chosen the perceivably more risky option of advertising after saying ‘no’ to marketing. During the 1979 Diwali break, my brother, who is quite curious about everything, wanted to know more about my life in advertising. I was the first person in our family to have taken up employment instead of opting for business. The first question he asked was, ‘Who else joined your company from the IIMs?’ I threw in Rajiv’s name and the fact that he was a top-ranking student from IIM-A. My brother was not to give up easily, and continued his probe: ‘Where did he study before IIM-A?’ Fortunately, I had done some homework, so I replied that Rajiv was from Delhi had studied at St. Stephen’s College and had done his schooling at St. Columba’s. When I mentioned St. Columba’s, my brother jumped up: ‘Is he the guy who won the first ever Bournvita Quiz Contest?’ Now, I did not know the answer to that.

  But truth be told, Rajiv Agarwal was indeed the first winner of the Bournvita Quiz Contest. He and a classmate of his won the contest the first time it was broadcasted on Vividh Bharati, in 1973!

  It would seem rather strange that someone would remember the name of the winner of a radio quiz contest, some seven years later. But that was the power of the radio medium in the ’70s, and of India’s first branded quiz show.

  Do remember that the quiz was in English and was broadcast on the government-run Vividh Bharati network of All India Radio. But it had a great following, at least among the big city, English-medium kids across India.

  Cadbury India as the sponsor was quite pleased to see the mass following of the programme, but after a decade, they too were not sure if the programme gave any commercial benefits to the brand Bournvita. But since it did have such a large following, they continued it on radio for nearly twenty years, hosted by brothers Hamid Sayani and Ameen Sayani at various points in time. It transitioned into a television programme on Zee TV and ran uninterrupted from 1992 to 2001. Then it had a checkered story on Sony and later Colors television channels. The country also got to meet a new quizmaster when it broke on TV and Derek O’Brien, the star quizmaster was born – he became a West Bengal Trinamool Congress spokesperson in his later avatar and a Member of Parliament; I wonder when he will conduct a quiz programme at the Indian Parliament. Incidentally, his father Neil O’Brien was a great quizmaster and used to host the intercollegiate and inter-corporate quiz contests in Kolkata in the ’70’s and ’80’s.

  In 2014, Bournvita Quiz Contest (BQC) moved to the digital medium and is hosted on Google’s YouTube channel. Chances are it will keep changing with the times but will continue to build stars like Rajiv Agarwal! Incidentally, Rajiv Agarwal with Arun Kale went on to start the ad agency, Nexus Advertising, which went on to do some great work for brands like Raymond.

  You have to remember that BQC was an elitist programme in some sense. It was in English and though there were many winners during its thirty-year history from smaller cities, the quiz was very much an affluent affliction, if you could call it that.

  This changed in the year 2000 when Kaun Banega Crorepati (KBC) shot up like a rocket, creating a movement the likes of which we had not seen before.

  Was KBC a programme that was inspired by BQC? Or was it based on an international format? How did it capture the imagination of the masses?

  KBC was based on an international format of big-prize-money-quizzing called Who Wants to Be a Millionaire? In fact, the programme is licensed from the original owners of the franchise. Star TV had been launched in India as an English channel and it could not match the allure of Zee TV which was offering a great bouquet of Hindi programming. Star TV realized that they too needed to move to Hindi but wanted to have a killer program that could be the Trojan horse that will help them enter Indian homes.

  Mastermind from BBC, hosted by Magnus Magnusson from 1972 to 1977 was the first taste many of us got to television quizzing during the days of black-and-white Doordarshan broadcasts; Magnus’ catchphrase ‘I’ve started so I’ll finish’ became part of common language in London. But it was Who Wants to Be a Millionaire? that married simplified quizzing with big money. It had worked its magic in UK and later in USA, helping the channels they were aired on to rise to the top. So Star management realized that it could be their magic bullet. The program combined quizzing with big money. Would that be enough to break through viewer inertia? Or would it become elitist like the BQC?

  It was young Sameer Nair, then programming head at Star TV, who suggested that the programme needed something more than just a simple yet interesting quiz and big money. He suggested that Star TV rope in a big celebrity, and why not Amitabh Bachchan, he asked in their internal strategy meeting. Incidentally, the Big B, as he is known now, was not too busy then. He was coming out of some financial issues relating to his company ABCL (Amitabh Bachchan Corporation Ltd.), but he needed convincing, which Sameer and the team managed to do.

  The first episode of KBC went on air in mid-2000 and it changed the fortunes of Star TV Network. On the back of KBC, Star Plus launched a host of serials including the famous saas-bahu ones featuring the eternal conflicts between the mother-in-law and daughter-in-law. Big B played his role to perfection, that of a gentle quizmaster, engaging with his participants and viewers alike, the angry young man of the ’70s and ’80s was reborn as the caring uncle of the 2000s. The success of KBC also ended up becoming a great launch vehicle for Amitabh Bachchan version 2, and Big B was born!

  Interestingly, Star Plus hosted Season I and went on to launch KBC II with Amitabh Bachchan as host in 2005-6 after a five-year hiatus. Unfortunately, with Big B falling ill, they had to abandon the second season midway. Star Plus tried KBC once again in 2007, this time with a new quizmaster, superstar Shah Rukh Khan.

  In 2010, the KBC franchise moved to Sony TV and Big B came back to play the tough yet gentle quizmaster once again and the channel has continued to offer a new season every year.

  What is interesting is that Sony TV managed to position the programme as not just a big prize money contest. The advertising theme lines used over the years 2012 and 2013 are clearly insightful of the changing attitudes of the Indian masses: ‘Sirf gyaan hi aapko aapka haq dilata hai’ (Only knowledge will get you what is rightfully yours) and ‘Seekhna bandh toh jeetna bandh’ (If you stop learning, you stop winning)! It may be apt to remember a quote from Mahatma Gandhi: Live as if you were to die tomorrow, learn as if you were to live forever.

  The success of BQC and KBC have had a beneficial effect on quizzing in the country. The Times Group of publications launched the Economic Times Brand Equity Quiz in the 1990s as India’s first corporate quizzing event. Tata Group launched the Tata Crucible – The Business Quiz in the 2000s in two formats, the Campus Quiz and the Corporate Quiz. Tata Consultancy Services took the route of IT quizzes in schools and now conducts this tough quiz in hundreds of schools around the country. And the list of brand sponsored quizzes is rather long, all serving the cause of knowledge development.

  From the days of Bournvita Quiz Contest to the days of Kaun Banega Crorepati, there has been a sea change in the way the masses have started seeing the role
of knowledge and education in their lives. KBC’s new theme lines so aptly capture the desire, the hunger of the masses and the middle-classes to seek education.

  ELEVATOR PITCH: Can you explain your idea in less than thirty-five words before the elevator reaches the floor at which the client is going to step out? Be ready with an elevator pitch at every pitch meeting.

  Much has been written about Indian society and how it has been, for millennia, driven by class and caste delineations. Knowledge was the preserve of the upper classes, especially the Brahmins. It was Swami Vivekananda who observed – ‘The only way to bring about the levelling of caste is to appropriate the culture, the education which is the strength of the higher castes’. The country had a paltry 30 per cent adult literacy rate when the country gained its Independence. In the last sixty years, literacy rates in India have moved to the 70 per cent league. But it is not just literacy that has changed, but the role of education in modern Indian society that has dramatically altered. What the founding fathers decided to do in terms of affirmative action, or reservation, is now finally changing the landscape and more importantly the attitude of parents to education.

  What could be other factors that are driving the growth of the education sector in the country? In the ’60s and ’70s, there was only one way of becoming rich: you start a business, cheat on taxes, bribe the right people to get clearances, and you became rich. In the 2000s, a new way of becoming rich or wealthy has been unearthed and in some sense KBC may have triggered this one. The common man today knows that if you have the right education, you can get a job and legitimately become rich.

  Some of us who have had the benefit of IIT/IIM education, often lament the excessive news coverage given to starting salaries of fresh graduates. The crore rupee salaries that get written about in the front page of newspapers make us cringe. But in reality, these very same reports are bringing about the attitude change in people towards education. Everyone knows that though the crore salary is not for all, there is hope that a ten-lakh salary is possibly within grasp, with the right education.

  The importance of education keeps coming up in any discussion you have with consumers, anywhere in India. In early 2013, I was in Ranchi to deliver a TEDx talk at IIM Ranchi and the taxi driver who was assigned to take care of me turned out to be a great conversationalist. He proudly told me that the biggest tourist attraction in Ranchi was Dhoni’s house! But that aside, he had lost his father at a young age and was driving a taxi to ensure that his sister and brother get the best education possible. It is rumoured that while many of the professors of IIM Calcutta fail to get their wards into IIM-C, one of the institute vehicle drivers actually managed the miracle!

  Consumers keep speaking about the importance of education and the need to create a nest egg to enable their children to get the right education. This desire is true across the world and President Barack Obama has written about a research done by Elizabeth Warren and Amelia Tyagi, which says that the primary reason a woman takes up employment, even in the USA, is to fund the education of her children1. In a survey published in the Economic Times Wealth supplement, 23 February – 1 March 2015, 54 per cent of the Indians surveyed said that they were satisfied with their levels of saving. And no prizes for guessing the top financial priorities: the number one priority is children’s education at 64 per cent, the next is buying a house at 57 per cent. It likely that if the same survey had been done twenty or thirty years ago, things like children’s marriage (now at 45 per cent) and planning a retirement (now at 38 per cent) may have ranked higher than children’s education. It is to be noted that cost of education, especially higher education has shot up over the last twenty years, but be that as it may, there is a growing movement toward educating children, both boys and girls. It is also true that in many areas, the public education system has failed to meet the growing educational aspirations of Indians. Annual Status of Education Report warns us about the ticking time bomb: in 2006, 53 per cent of children in Class 5 could read a Class 2 text; in 2014, this has dropped to 48 per cent; Livemint, 23 February 2014. So if the subsidized public system is failing to deliver, there is no option but for lay public to spend on their children’s education in a never before scale.

  Education or gyan is going to become an even more important topic in Indian society. Government of India’s reservation system is bound to get further refreshed. Cost of higher education will continue to rise. Dileep Ranjekar of Azim Premji Foundation, which focuses on school education, is a vocal advocate of Teacher Education Reform. He says that every teacher education institution should be situated in a multidisciplinary university that provides the benefit of inputs from experts in the disciplines of sociology, philosophy, psychology, anthropology, technology, basic sciences etc2.

  Given the education mania sweeping through the country, there has been a boom in the number of engineering and business schools across the country and Chetan Bhagat’s book, Revolution 2020, captures the ugly underbelly of the Indian education system. But there is no gainsaying that the education explosion is going to continue for the next five decades. Millions of Indians need to be educated and skilled, and there will be innumerable opportunities for education ventures, from kindergarten to schools to professional colleges to technical institutes.

  AG Krishnamurthy, the founder of Mudra Communications, would probably go down in history as the first person from the world of advertising to have conceived a business school totally dedicated to advertising and marketing. The institute that is his brain child, MICA, is today ranked as one of the top business schools in India, at least for kids interested in a career in marketing.

  Indian television advertising has used the classroom to sell products for over three decades. From the days when Raju won the cup because his school uniform dazzled the brightest, to the naughty kid who smuggled Hajmola into the school dorm, to friends fighting over the lunch box, we have seen the classroom and school ambience used to great effect in advertising various products. Of late, we have also started seeing classrooms featuring in humorous settings as well.

  A student runs down the corridor. He is late for his class which is being taken by a rather stern professor. As he tries to sneak in, he gets caught by the professor who shouts, ‘Get out’. Cut to the kid running down the corridor again. He once again tries entering the class, but this time by walking backwards. The professor spots him and assumes that he is trying to leave the class. He shouts, ‘Sit down.’ The brand message flashes, ‘Mentos, Dimag ki batti jala de’ (Mentos, lights up your brain).

  In yet another humourous take, the class is seated and the professor announces that they will be discussing the rural development bill. He makes a key announcement, ‘I want proper parliamentary behaviour’ at which stage total pandemonium breaks out, reminiscent of some of the worst days at the Indian parliament. The brand message flashes saying, ‘Behave yourself, India, the youth are watching … The Hindu’. Written by the veteran ad man, Piyush Pandey of Ogilvy, the ad is an ugly reflection of our parlimentarians.

  It is not as if advertising has only lampooned the classroom and student behaviour. In one of the most popular advertisements done by Raymond in the mid-2000s, set in a boarding school ambience, the students give a warm send off to their favourite teacher by gifting him suitings material from Raymond, which he discovers when he gets into his car to drive off. As an ode to that film, Raymond did a second part in the 2010s, where the student, now a grown man, invites the teacher to his wedding. Once again, presenting the special bond between student and teacher.

  The computer was once seen as an evil machine that could destroy jobs. Some public sector companies, especially the bank employees’ unions, went on strike opposing bank computerization in the ’80s. But one company saw an opportunity in this chaos. NIIT became the provider of affordable computer education across the country. They even roped in chess grandmaster Viswanathan Anand as their brand ambassador. I wonder if a chess grandmaster has been used as a brand endorser anywhere el
se in the world. Today, computers are there in all schools and NIIT has had to change its business model. They have partnered with institutes of higher learning, like IIM Calcutta, to provide satellite-aided diploma programmes. They have also launched national-level skill assessment tests called NITAT or National Industry Targeted Aptitude Test, and grandmaster Viswanathan Anand continues to play the role of their brand ambassador.

  What role will advertising play in the growth of education in twenty-first century India?

  Indian print medium has been the big beneficiary of the education ad boom. It is probably difficult to believe, but education institutions are the one of the biggest category of advertisers. What started as the advertising medium for coaching classes like Brilliant Tutorials – which at one time ran front-page ads in all leading newspapers of India 365 days a year – has now become the preferred advertising medium for respectable universities. The new-age digital medium has been a big beneficiary as well. Lovely University of Punjab was the single biggest advertiser in the digital medium in the year 2013.

  With the growth of the Internet and smartphones with wifi/data access, the education sector in India is set to undergo further change. The growth of MOOCs, Massive Open Online Courses, across the western world is already upon us. The role of the physical classroom will drastically change and, as Swami Vivekanda observed, the barrier put up by the old interest groups will come down rapidly.

  Ajit Balakrishnan, an IIM Calcutta alumus and Chairman of the Board of Governors of IIM-C, is emphatic as he quotes French sociologist Pierre Bourdieu to say that education has a larger role of creating ‘Cultural Capital’; an asset that an individual possesses which can give continuous financial returns just like Financial Capital3.