In a country like India where clearly defined audience segmentation is converging into one heterogeneous mass, the language of communication is now being calibrated to reach mixed masses. Nowhere is this more evident than in the way recent blockbusters are being designed and scripted. Omkara, Delhi Belly, Ye Saali Zindagi, Dev D all are full of language that is far from the vocabulary of the traditional middle class.
But having said that, the world of ads, which is branded by so-called mora-lists as being the domain of indecency and forbidden visuals, is comparatively free and clean from these vulgarities. One would expect that the world of ads would mirror the trend with higher doses of vulgarity but surprisingly that has not happened. One reason may be that the world of ads has always been an open world and access to it has progressively become universal. Advertising evolved much earlier and almost imperceptibly to create a vocabulary of its own which did not need to be vulgar. The language of ads has never tried to be correct. Communicate at any cost and communicate forcefully is the motto of the ad. The rise of Hinglish and the fall of so-called Queen’s English all happened so seamlessly and organically that nobody even bothered to point to these major changes.
Multinational brands took to this new vocabulary of communication like horses take to watering holes. We have seen big brands emoting with rustics — Bengali babu, mota bhai, Santa Banta, Hyderabadi, Nepali, and some of the commercials that showcased them have even broken the national boundaries and got global recognition. The world of comedy that ads access is the world of absurdity; in essence they are like the world that the cartoon and fun characters depict. The bank robber reveals his identity and the friend who is an utter miser gives a missed call to the police.
If ads recourse to vulgarity it is with lots of tongue in cheek — the chaddi utarna commercial of Pepsi or the Axe chocolate man are few and far between considering the volume of ads being churned out by the commercial world. And surprisingly they were more suggestive than ove-rtly vulgar and faced much stronger pro-tests from the public than that utterly shocking stuff of the movies and TV shows. In many cases vulgarities are depicted in ads as a source of nuisance and brands are obliged to remove them.
The smell of dirty socks or a stink inside the car have immediate solutions in brands. Underarm odours are replaced with aromatic ones…The whole list of female sanitary care products bring in a perfumed and problem free world. Annoyed police men doing breathalysers cry out for a solution to foul breath from toothpaste. Laxative ads which could have naturally verged in the domain of vulgarity have a dignified portrayal of a female protagonist who transforms from an irritant home-maker to her warm caring self once the brand has helped her.
I like the MAD man serial where the creative director Don Draper explained to his client, owner of the cigarette brand, Lucky Strike, that advertising is just not about selling, it is about happiness. It is a big billboard on the road of life which says you are fine, you are okay. In a way it invests life with purpose and meaning and vulgarising this would be trivialising the feeling. So, next time you want to be vulgar in your ads give it a second thought; maybe you are doing it at your own peril!

The writer is VP, consumer insight & human futures development, McCann Erickson India. He can be reached at kishore. chakraborti@mccann.com