Hindi film music was indeed the lifeblood of the country for many decades. The voices of Lata Mangeshkar and Mohammad Rafi captivated millions. Sanjay Srivastava explains the magnetic power of Lata Mangeshkar in his essay ‘The Voice of the Nation and the Five-Year Plan Hero: Speculations on Gender, Space, and Popular Culture’ saying that she has ‘…an aura of the cult of Meera – the medieval princess-poetess and an iconic figure in the Bhakti movement – about her. Like the Bhakti poets, Lata too has forsaken her sexuality and domesticity for devotion to a greater cause, namely the endowment of national pleasure through a redefinition of modern Indian feminine identity … in the process, she became the icon of virgin mother (sister?) (sic) of the nation’. Srivastava also says that there were other contrasting figures. ‘The most obvious contrast is with the ghazal singer Begum Akhtar … made no effort, even in old age, to project the image of either an asexual mother figure or a generically “respectable” grandmother’4.
The early ads in Indian cinema halls did borrow from the popularity of Hindi film songs. Lifebuoy with its anthemish jingle, ‘Lifebuoy hai jahan, tandurusti hai wahan (where there is Lifebuoy, there is health)’ comes to mind as the most vivid example.
Around the mid-’70s, Indians were getting exposed to western popular music thanks to Radio Ceylon and Radio Kuwait, and the weekly dose on AIR. This led to the emergence of another voice from Kolkata, Usha Uthup. Her jingles for brands like Gold Spot and Nescafe are widely remembered. The Gold Spot cinema spot featured a girl walking down a beach carrying a bottle of Gold Spot as Usha crooned ‘Livva little hot, sippa Gold Spot’; created by the legendary ad agency MCM, the film and print advertising featured a young girl who later became the superstar Rekha. In yet another spot, which was shot in the Kaziranga Forest reserve where a group of youngsters were taking a ride on an elephant, sipping coffee to Usha’s song of ‘Come alive to the taste of Nescafe’.
Indian ads were also using popular Hindustani ragas to create memorable tunes. The most memorable ad of the ’80s would probably be the Hamara Bajaj commercial which was in the Hindustani raga Desh.
The most-loved musical piece on television at that time – you cannot call it an advertisement – was the Ek Sur or Mile Sur Mera Tumhara film on national integration. The film was first telecast after the Prime Minister’s speech at Red Fort on Independence Day, 1988. The project, conceptualized by Suresh Mallik (Ogilvy & Mather) and Kailash Surendranath, film-maker, had as its cast a whole host of musicians from around India, movie stars, sports personalities and more. The lyrics were by Piyush Pandey of Ogilvy & Mather, music was composed by Ashok Patki and arranged by Louis Banks.
In a sense, this film lives on in advertising as an example of a ‘national integration’ story. Bajaj was one of the earliest to adopt this approach. Numerous other brands such as the American car brand Chevrolet, cement brands, fabric brands have all used this format.
It is not as if Indian advertising was held captive by film music or classical musical formats. In the ’90s, Parag Trivedi – he passed away at a very young age – used to conduct day-long workshops to get mainly advertising agency creative executives familiarized with western classical music. He used to take the listeners through the emergence of various musical forms in the West, starting with the Gregorian chant to the rise of classical music during the Renaissance.
Parag had a colleague who used to conduct a workshop on Indian classical music or Hindustani music. As preparation for a workshop she was conducting at our agency FCB Ulka, she asked for ten of our jingle-based ads to understand what our pet tunes were. She later told me that we seem to be in love with the Raga Desh.
Gregorian chant is a form of monophonic music which is without any instrumentation, employing only human voices. Gregorian chants were traditionally sung by choirs of men and boys in churches of the western Roman Catholic Church. While conceptualizing the ad for Voltas Megalaundrette, which featured a set of ten men and kids singing in only their towels, the music style that brought alive the words ‘Yeh ho nahi sakta’ (This cannot happen) was the Gregorian chant.
Titan watches was set up in 1984 as a joint venture between the Tata Group and Tamil Nadu government’s TIDCO. The company went on to take on the hegemony of the public sector giant HMT to redefine watch habit in the country. Riding the quartz wave, the company proved all naysayers wrong by getting conservative Indians to switch from a manual-winding watch to a watch powered by a battery that needed change every year. The company launched its range of great-looking watches through captivating catalogue-type advertising in newspapers and magazines. Indians, who till then were only exposed to such watches when they travelled abroad, were now spoilt for choice. The company also pioneered the retail end of the selling game by setting up its own company-authorized retail stores which were staffed with people who helped the Indian consumer make the leap from manual to battery-powered watches. When the brand started advertising on television and cinemas, it decided to once again showcase its great-looking watch range – shot with much love and affection. The managing director of the company then, Xerxes Desai, was a western classical music aficionado. The story goes that he picked a musical interlude from Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart’s Symphony No. 25 in G minor. The company did not question the logic of using a musical piece that was over two hundred years old to help sell a modern quartz watch. But the gambit worked. Titan’s choice of Mozart set it apart from the other jingle-based ads on television. The company has wisely stayed with the same musical piece, though it has been rendered in many different ways in the last thirty years. The lay public and buyers of Titan watches, at least most of them, think that it is Titan music, and not Mozart. This is not unique to India. Brands everywhere have used bits of classical music to sell their wares. Even for mundane products like Quaker Puffed Wheat and Puffed Rice, Tchaikovsky’s finale to the 1812 Overture was used5.
AUDIO SIGNATURE: Brands can create and nurture its special feel by using a musical signature. It calls for careful crafting of a tune that can live a long life. Titan managed it. Britannia has lived with its little ditty for decades. Tata Docomo created a signature and built on it. So did Airtel.
If we were to look at ads produced in India over the last twenty years, we will get to meet numerous musical forms and they can be a great quick-guide to music. Let us take a quick tour.
Popular western music is a staple for Indian advertising. Till the copyright rules changed in the 2000s, ads were allowed to use a bit of any popular tune by just getting a written approval from an association. When we made our first Tata Indica film (‘More Dreams Per Car’) the film-makers, Namita Roy Ghose and Subir Chatterjee of White Light films used a short piece from the popular track by Lobo ‘I’d love you to want me’. The film was such a big hit that when the music company that owned the track released a cassette featuring ten ‘for the road’ tracks, they even had a sticker on the cover saying ‘Featuring the Indica Song’.
That was in the year 1999. A few years later when we were working on a film for the car Indigo Marina, we were keen on using the song by the jazz legend, Louis Armstrong, ‘What a Wonderful World’. But our film-maker friend, Rajesh Saathi could not identify the title holder in India. Being an enterprising young film-maker, he came up with a great idea. He said he would get a song written about a man and a woman in love, get it composed and have a guy, whose voice was similar to Louis Armstrong, perform it. When the film was made, featuring the super model Sheetal Mallar being taken out on a date by a handsome young man, who pulls out a whole array of things from the cavernous boot of the Indigo Marina, all to the tune of the new song, we all fell in love with the film. Though the client team did not fully endorse our idea of a gravelly voice singing a love song, they relented after we played an optional track. The film ran on national television and the car sold well. Some months after the film went on air, I received a letter from a lady who said that her octogenarian father was an ardent fan of Louis Armstrong and had every single album, single sung
/played by the great musician. After combing through his collection – it must have taken days – the old man could not locate the song that was used in the Indigo Marina film. So the lady said that her father was curious to know how we got the track and which album can she find it on. I had to write to her that we had fooled her, and her dad, by creating our own version of a Louis Armstrong song.
If that was jazz, can reggae be far behind.
When National Dairy Development Board, under the guidance of the Milkman of India, Dr V Kurien, wanted us to create an ad to popularize the consumption of milk, the team wrote a snappy jingle that used the Hindi word for milk – ‘Doodh’ – as the musical refrain. The jingle which touted the many benefits of milk – ‘Doodh doodh doodh doodh, wonderful doodh, piyo glassful’ – was set to a reggae tune. This type of music derives its origins from Jamaican dance music. Till date, the ‘Doodh Doodh’ jingle and ad continues to be so popular that when a video production company decided to create an anthem for Indian advertising, it started with the ‘Doodh Doodh’ film. The jingle for Kingfisher Mineral Water too used a reggae tune for their meaningless jingle ‘Ooolalala Ooleyo’.
It is not as if Indian ads are besotted with western musical formats. Of late, we are seeing numerous relatively less-known Indian musical genres getting their time under the spotlight.
A boat is being rowed down the river. It is loaded with brand new wooden chairs. The boatman spots a nubile young woman waiting for a ride to get to the other side of the river. She asks him shyly and indicates with her eyes that his boat is full. He quickly pushes some of the chairs overboard – later we see that they are all tied to the boat – and creates space for the nubile wench. What fascinated me was the music that accompanied this love story. It was a particular type of music sung by the wandering minstrels of West Bengal, known as Bauls. Created by Ogilvy for its client Fevicol, the writer of the ad, Abhijit Awasti admitted that the choice of the music was by his uncle, the director of the film, Prasoon Pandey; just as several other talented ad film-makers of India, he too has a great range of musical knowledge.
In addition to using music in advertisements, brands also use music or musical notes as their signature. We saw how Titan usurped Mozart. Britannia biscuits have used a ditty, ‘ting ting di ting’, as the last sound for their ad films for decades. Doordarshan’s signature music composed by Pandit Ravi Shankar was once the most recalled musical tune. In recent times, Airtel has got music director AR Rahman – not Dilip this time – to compose a special musical track for them which they have used consistently, even if it is as an end note in every ad they have released. Tata Docomo too has its own musical signature – do do do, do do do – composed by Ram Sampath. Internationally, brands have used music in new ways and experts like music composer Joel Beckerman have been roped in to create ‘sonic branding’ for AT&T, Mercedes, Disney, Coca-Cola and others. Tyler Gray explores the new role of sonic branding and its role in brand building in The Sonic Boom: How Sound Transforms the Way We Think, Feel and Buy6. Brands are now figuring out how to engage with their customers better by creating and owning a bit of sound, music or even sound effect which can make the brand more evocative and sticky. This ‘sonic branding’ can play in all the advertising, in showrooms, as telephone hold tunes and even when the website is getting loaded. Rajeev Raja, a veteran creative director and a musician of great repute, has reinvented his career in 2012 to become a ‘Brand Mogo’ expert; mogo standing for ‘musical logo’.
The usage of various forms of music in Indian ads fascinated me so much that I got a musically talented young man from our agency to try and catalogue various types of music that have been used in Indian advertising. In this chapter, till now we have seen Hindi film songs, Hindustani classical, western classical, western popular, Gregorian chant, jazz, reggae, baul. In our analysis, we also located Italian operatic music, gazals, sufi music, Indian Carnatic music, Indo-Jazz fusion music, Qawwali, African drums, scatting etc.
This should come as no surprise. All popular Indian art forms have a liberal dose of music. All Indian films till date have had songs; National Film awards are given not just for the film with the best music, but also for the best song, best male singer, best female singer etc. In his book Hindi Film Geet Kosh, Harminder Singh Hamraaz has indicated that JJ Madan’s Indra Sabha (1932) had sixty-nine songs, the maximum for any Hindi movie; pointing this out, TJS George offers the musical crown to the Tamil movie Lava Kusa, which reportedly had seventy-two songs7.
All Indian television soap operas have a song in the beginning. Song-based reality shows like Zee SaReGaMaPa continue to thrill audiences.
With the emergence of Internet as a separate medium, Indians’ thirst for music is going to get even more diverse and hopefully will be even better served.
Coke Studio is an experiment of combining various musical forms and started in Brazil in 2007. It was adapted in Pakistan and became a digital video sensation clocking millions of views. Combining western rock-style music with Sufi music, Coke Studio Pakistan gained cult-like following in the sub-continent. Coke India along with its media agency Lodestar UM under the able guidance of Shashi Sinha decided to turn up the heat one more notch by partnering with MTV. Coke Studio India was offered on MTV and also on the Internet and has found great fan following. Not only has the programme used the genres of music that we all know, they have also managed to unearth relatively unknown musical formats like the folk music of Tamil Nadu by a singer called Chinnakannu. Absolutely fascinating stuff that!
SOUND VISUALS: Radio experts tell us that sound needs to be presented in such a way that it will make the listener visualize what is happening. So using sound creatively is a part of great radio advertising. Listen carefully the next time, see if the radio production company is able to get you to visualize the situation.
As India becomes more and more prosperous, I believe there will be a growing appetite for various musical forms. Already in a city like Mumbai, we have Hindustani classical concerts, Carnatic music festivals, Sufi, gazal, blues, jazz, rock, EDM and other forms of music concerts.
In modern-day India, while other musical forms are gaining traction, Hindi film music continues to rule and is getting new life with the increasing need for songs to perform at wedding sangeet ceremonies. In addition, across the country there is a demand for live performers to belt out Hindi songs at events ranging from product launches, birthday parties, shop openings, wedding anniversaries, etc.
Keskar tried banning Hindi film music. But instead he ended up creating a pent-up demand for the genre of music he was keen on restricting. It is quite possible that the very same songs he tried banning on AIR in the late-’50s are finding new life in a remixed manner as wedding sangeet songs, not just in India but wherever Indians live.
Meri Khubsurti Ka Raaz
IT WAS THE biggest advertising event of the year, the Abby Awards Show of the Ad Club at the National Sports Club of India (NSCI) grounds at Worli, Mumbai. The special guest at the awards was the reigning superstar of Bollywood, Shah Rukh Khan. Ad Club had managed this coup thanks to the friendship of Pradeep Guha, the then President of Ad Club, with the superstar. I think the year was 2002. As was the custom, SRK was requested to say a few words at the event. His extempore speech, and Pradeep confirms that it was extempore, just floored me.
In short, SRK said: I am here at an advertising function to thank all of you for getting me those wonderful endorsement contracts. I make a packet endorsing brands and I have all of you to thank you for that. Please remember that the funding I get helps me try out new roles and experiment with the kind of stories I am picking to act in.
Asoka had just released. He went on like this for a few minutes. Then he started reeling out the brands he was endorsing, including Pepsi, Hyundai Santro etc. He ended his light speech with a call for action: he still had a few slots open and was looking for endorsements in headache pills, pain balms, hair oil, undergarments, socks and shoes!
SRK may have said it
in mirth, but the truth is that in the year 2016, it is quite a task not to see a film star endorsing a brand when you switch on the TV set.
But it was not like this, even three decades ago. Stars endorsing brands is a mania we have seen in the 1990s and 2000s.
Did this western phenomenon of celebrity madness travel to India along with the concept of advertising?
The award for the most amusing episode relating to celebrity endorsements should go to this anecdote: In the 1920s, Harrods, the London departmental store, asked three literary luminaries, George Bernard Shaw, Arnold Benner and HG Wells to write testimonials for their store. All three declined for a variety of reasons, but their refusals were so evocative that they ultimately ran as advertisements1.
CELEBRITY COSTS: Hiring a celebrity costs a bomb and often they are particular about giving eight hours and nothing more. The hidden costs of hiring a film star could include special allowances for the star’s driver, make-up man, hair stylist, dress designer, vanity van driver and more. Factor these in when you plan to hire a film star for your next launch.
While those learned gentlemen refused, many attractive Hollywood stars have willingly obliged and many have starred in Lux advertisements from the early twentieth century. No wonder filmographers say that the oldest film star endorsement in Indian firmament was possibly the Hindi star Leela Chitnis modelling for Lux. As the reader may know, Lux soap from Unilever is positioned globally as the ‘beauty secret of film stars’. UK born ad historian Nigel Rees says that Lux even used a more emphatic claim – ‘Nine out of ten screen stars use Lux toilet soap for their priceless smooth skins’ – in the US in 1927 and continued to use it for twenty years2. The brand entered India over 100 years ago and used famous Hollywood stars to promote itself to the affluent Indian consumer. It was in the 1940s that the company decided it needed to use Indian actresses to help the brand connect with Indian women. What Leela Chitnis started was then followed up by almost all the leading film stars of India. It is rumoured that leading actresses in Indian cinema used to see the Lux contract as something that announced to the world that they had ‘arrived’. Hindustan Lever for years used a single-point contract person who managed these star arrangements. Apparently, the fee was very low and the endorsement was sold as a sign of recognition. Leading Bollywood film stars including Waheeda Rehman, Rekha, Hema Malini, Sridevi, Madhuri Dixit, Zeenat Aman, Aishwarya Rai have all featured in Lux advertisements. In the south, all the major stars including Padmini, Savitri, Sharada, Jayanthi and others have followed suit. The first Indian male film star to have featured in a Lux advertisement is SRK. In 2005, to celebrate a special anniversary, Lux made an ad that had SRK in a bathtub surrounded by the former and current endorsers of the brand: Hema Malini, Sridevi, Juhi Chawla and Kareena Kapoor. In fact, till then, the only other male star to have featured in a Lux ad was the indomitable Paul Newman.
Nawabs, Nudes, Noodles Page 21