Extract | For God’s Sake

In a religious spot

In 1994, Draftfcb Ulka created a television commercial for Santoor soap. The advertisement showed the “Santoor woman” outdoors, playing cricket. It was the first time she had been featured minus the traditional bindi, and ad man Ambi Parameswaran remembers being apprehensive about how it would be received at the time.

Parameswaran revisits the 20-year-old Santoor ad, among others, to explore the links between religiosity and consumer behaviour in India. In his new book, For God’s Sake: An Adman on the Business of Religion, he uses some memorable Indian advertisements to unpack how traditional symbols and religious ideas work in commercials, and how religion permeates everything in our lives—from weddings to tourism and information technology.

In a chapter, titled “Religious Music Can Rescue Ads”, he talks about the influence of religious music in advertisements, and film and popular music. Edited excerpt:

The Indian refrigerator and washing machine market had exploded in the 1990s when the Indian government reduced the excise duties from the absurd levels of 160 per cent to a more modest 15 per cent. The story goes that a member of Parliament from a left party objected to this drastic reduction in washing machine duties saying that the Indian government was going to render jobless millions of maids who earned a living washing clothes. The then prime minister, the normally reticent P.V. Narasimha Rao, is reported to have replied, ‘Would the honourable member of Parliament prefer that we continue to be a country of maids?’

Voltas saw great opportunity in the fast-growing washing machine market. But unlike refrigerators, washing machines were not that popular as they needed both electricity and continuous water supply. However, to sell the bottom-end semi-automatic washing machines, the manufacturer had to build its image as an innovator at the top end of the product pyramid. Voltas therefore decided to tap the top end of the market with a powerful product offering, with the promise of a full range in due course. The model picked out to advertise was the biggest in its class, with a 7 kilo capacity. The planning team had come up with an interesting name for the model, the Voltas Mega Laundrette, signifying powerful cleaning as in a laundry. The teams brainstormed on the creative idea and it was felt that the 7 kilo capacity needed to be communicated powerfully and visually since it meant nothing to a consumer.

The idea was crystallized with a very large family of men and kids dressed only in towels, all waiting for their clothes to be washed. The creative team thought the film should show these men and kids challenging the women of the house by singing, ‘no washing machine can wash so many clothes’. The creative director, Subodh Poddar, had written a song pretty much saying that—‘Yeh nahin ho sakta, kabhi nahin ho sakta’ (this is not possible, definitely not possible). The words were set to tune and the account director, Shireen Cama, played it to then head of the agency, Anil Kapoor. They heard it a few times and Anil pronounced that the tune was not working. The creative director was requested to try something else. Cut to two days later. Same scene, same result. Cut to two days later. Same. Same.

It was then that Anil and Shireen started a serious discussion on what they wanted from the music. Anil said he wanted the music to stir emotions of incredulity, not fun or frolic. He remembered that some form of old Christian religious music could produce such an effect. Shireen, who was quite an encyclopedia on operatic and western classical music, said she would rummage through the family music collection and return the next day with some options. Finally, they discovered the music they wanted: it was the Gregorian chant. This form of music is a monophonic, non-instrumental, sacred song of the Roman Catholic Church dating back to the ninth and tenth centuries Europe. Pope St Gregory the Great has been credited with its invention.

Armed with the tape, the creative director rushed back to the studio and the recording was done and dusted just a couple of hours later. The ad for Voltas Mega Laundrette featuring men dressed in towels singing a Gregorian chant-like song went on to become a big hit. Washing machine sales peaked and the ad went on to win numerous industry accolades.

That was the case of religious music rescuing an ad.

Marketers have also used religious music to build consumer contact. Castrol, which was a big advertiser on radio, discovered that truck drivers, a key target audience, could be reached more cost-effectively through free music cassettes of various genres. Their research revealed that contrary to their image as philanderers, truck drivers were happiest while listening to religious music. So they decided to distribute religious music cassettes with cans of Castrol lubricants.