Storyboard18 - Indian advertising needs to understand housewives beyond 'gajar ka halwa'

The girl in the waterfall capitalised on this window. It was a wonderful way for the housewife to escape into a fantasy world of freshness during those few minutes that she had to herself. All made possible by a bar of lemon-scented soap. The soap was a runaway hit.

These two very contrasting ads—one from almost 50 years ago and another that is running today in 2022—makes one wonder, when it comes to portraying or targeting the Indian housewife in advertising, have we really come a long way? Or have we actually regressed?

Sometime around 2013, an organisation dedicated to promoting gender equality in media did their rounds of all the advertising agencies. All of us, agency creative directors, were rounded up and requested to be a little more sensitive in our portrayal of women and families in advertising. And it sure did make most of us realise that perhaps unconsciously, we were helping promote certain stereotypes.

I must confess that in my many years in advertising, I have been guilty of having presented the Indian housewife as the stereotypical mom—happily laying out breakfast for her perfect nuclear family—a husband and two kids, always a boy and a girl. Or a husband buying his wife diamonds to show how wonderful a wife she is.

Though such situations are still the norm in India, it is refreshing to see some newer ads which are trying to show non-stereotypical families. But one has to be careful that this does not come across as just tokenism. For instance, there is a breakfast cereal ad where it is the dad who is making breakfast for his daughter while trying to braid her hair. The intention is laudable, but the situation comes across as a bit forced. The effort shows, but ideally, the situation should come across as normal.

I have created advertising for diamond jewellery for many years. Being a working woman myself, I had bought myself diamond jewellery on a few occasions. But every time I presented an ad where the woman buys herself diamonds, I was always told that 99 percent of Indian women were gifted diamonds by their husbands or parents. Buying diamonds for herself may be misconstrued that the poor thing did not have a man or a parent in her life who could shower her with diamonds, therefore she had to resort to buying them herself.

I knew that this was not true. But being a creative person, it was always my gut feeling pitted against meticulously collected research data. When I finally did manage to sneak in at least one ad in a three-ad campaign done for DeBeers Forevermark—where a young working girl blows up her entire bonus on buying herself diamond ear studs—I felt triumphant.

A small victory, but a victory nonetheless. Therefore, today it gives me great joy to see many more ads where women are buying themselves jewellery and it is not tokenism either. Seems to be a real reflection of the times.

The modern Indian wife, whether a homemaker or a working woman, is smart. She realises that she still carries a bigger load of the housework and child-rearing duties at home. Therefore, a brand that acknowledges this fact and points out the better way for the future strikes the perfect note.

Ariel, the laundry detergent brand that says “Share the load,” has been doing this with great success year after year. The health drink ad where a child sloppily packs tiffin for his mom because she needs her nutrition may be cutesy, but I can see all moms going “aww” at that advert—just like the mom in the ad did.

At least some in advertising have begun to realise that the housewife in India is overworked and underappreciated. Any advertisement that acknowledges this fact seems to strike a chord with her. That is a sign of having come a long way from portraying her as someone just waiting to make gajar ka halwa at the snap of her husband’s finger.

Nandita Chalam is a former executive creative director, Wunderman Thompson and a lecturer on Advertising, Xavier Institute of Communications. Views expressed are personal.