To promote their brands and reach the consumers effectively, companies are using different types of brand personalities that are close to real-life personalities that we encounter everyday. The various personas in the Aamir Khan Coke ads, the aspirant young girl in the Fair & Lovely ad, the roadside romeo in the Close-Up ad, etc., are discussed in this article.
If advertising is about thinking out-of-the-box, the characteristic personas being used to promote brands provide for an interesting analysis. There are several types of personas being used to promote brands to Indian consumers. They are radically different from the conventional stereotypes that we have accepted as the quintessential representatives of Indians. The common thread that binds these diverse and maverick personas is that these personas are iconic in their own right and a large section of the modern Indian populace aspires to emulate them.
Indian public places are the favorite haunts of the new-age hero - buses, trains, tea shops, snack bars, permit rooms and cheap restaurants. They are loud, boorish, dressed garishly and eager to pick a fight with all and sundry. Aamir Khan saunters into a down-market restaurant and orders the man at the counter in an intimidating manner to serve a "thanda". The cheap leather jacket, rowdy mannerisms are all evidence of the quintessential self-styled heroes that one encounters at railway stations or commonly used public spaces. |
