Social & Cultural Sensitivity in Modern Advertisements

Author: S Vasudevan Institute of Chartered Accountants of India (ICAI)

Advertisements must be created in such a way that influences the buyer to go for their product and the required satisfaction is created for the money being spent. Brands often spend huge sums of money on various marketing agencies for creating big-budget advertisements to stimulate the demand for their product Global brands spent a whopping $493 billion dollars on advertising

Expenditure of Indian brands in the “Advertising” space

Since we have understood the importance of advertisements and the benefits accruing to the businesses because of advertising, let us move to the main issue which is to be answered urgently by many brands and that is, the level of social and ng followed in all these tunately, due to cutthroat craze for launching new en, brands tend to forget rules or traditions while t. They need to understand yal of a nation’s culture or to bring them any revenue. y, they tend to lose their value which might hamper ntly. When brands face the he losses are estimated at

A survey depicting possible consequences of offensive advertising

Moving on, let us now see how social and cultural values can be managed in advertisements of the brands First and foremost, the majority of the brands tend to downgrade social values and traditions in their advertisements in the name of “Progressiveness” and most of them (brands) have failed terribly in these experiments in the forms of ads Therefore, to manage these values, the brands must have to draw a clear line between “Progressive values” and “Social, cultural and religious values” This can be rectified by understanding the prospective market’s social and cultural values and to the extent to which progressive values can be comfortably depicted to the public

Next, brands at times improperly portray certain values which may not be accepted positively by the public, to avoid this they must study the local culture and its ethos and values. This can be in form of deploying someone aware of the local traditions and cultures while filming the ads or collecting necessary information through the form of a survey. As discussed earlier, the brands tend to be in a hurry because of which the net result is deficient. Also, by engaging a local partner, the wrong interpretation of the culture can be eliminated.

A diverse menu of McDonald’s compliant with the social and cultural values of the host country

Moving on, brands tend to stereotype many issues ranging from gender stereotypes to racial or ethnic discrimination. Flawed advertising which mocks stereotyping of sensitive issues brings in a lot of bad reputation which may damage their brand image beyond repair, brands tend to forget ethics in advertising to promote their product which results in stereotyping. They even tend to ignore the minority population of consumers to cater to the majority consumers, they can be managed effectively by bringing in the values of inclusion and diversity in their ads

After knowing about certain blunders which brands commit by degrading social and cultural values, let us know what the brands can do to manage social and cultural values, firstly they might have to thoroughly research the market and learn about all the traditions and their tolerance to progressiveness Also, when brands advertise in the print media, they must be careful in picking the images since wrong interpretation may cost the brand

Also, the government can play a role in helping manage the social and cultural values in the advertisements, it can promote a business environment which has a low tolerance towards advertisements which degrade their culture with all access to freedom of speech and expression. Awards must be announced to those advertisements which perfectly depict the values, also brands must be sensitised about the expectation of the government and the public from them when it comes to the promotion of their brand This can make the brands aware of their goals and objectives in the country