Culture and tradition are back in action as communication tools with the marketers. Folk arts, traditional dance and music, festival occasions, locations with cultural associations, mythological themes, etc., are all back for the advertiser to exploit for commercial benefit. This article attempts to discuss recent developments in this direction.

Increased urbanization and west- ernization, coupled with the in- flux of a whole variety of modern consumer products led to a departure from past practices, and pushed traditional vehicles of communication as well as traditional art forms to the background. However, once the potential of our tradition and culture was recognized, enterprising businesses began to exploit the same for promoting their products, leading to their resurgence. Cultural and religious events, folk arts, etc., are now regarded as important and effective instruments of social engineering in India, and are used extensively by advertising professionals.

For example, many traditional performing arts no longer enjoy the patronage that they used to before; and are completely out-shadowed by modern forms of entertainment. However, in recent times, there has been a revival of traditional art forms in modern India. But the ones that are showing interest are neither the government nor the art lovers. The support appears to have come from a much unexpected quarter – commercial business entities. Businesses – both small and large – have started looking at these art forms more seriously than they did in the past.

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