women’s day · “at times, it helps being a little deaf” zivame’s richa kar r icha kar...
TRANSCRIPT
“At times, it helps being a little deaf”Zivame’s Richa Kar
Richa Kar doesn’t believe in mincing words. “At times, it helps being a little deaf,” reckons founder and CEO
of online lingerie brand Zivame. She explains how and why.
Sometime in 2015, a potential investor spoke to one of her invest-ment bankers and passed a nasty comment: lingerie as a category is sexy. Furious Kar retorted: “It’s cool, NOT sexy.” What helped Kar calm down was her unflinching belief in one of her survival tricks: turn deaf for a while.
People will, Kar lets on, use un-kind words, might pull you down or be too harsh. But just turn deaf to whatever they say. “Don’t let negativity affect you,” asserts Kar,
who has always kept her gender aside while doing business.
She concedes people might have rejected her — from a potential employee not wanting to join, to a potential investor not willing to put in money or a supplier who doesn’t want to work — because of her gender. But that has never bothered her.
“The beauty of being an entre-preneur is that gender hardly plays a role,” she adds. One is in complete control of the venture as there is no glass ceiling, which might exist in the corporate world.
In spite of facing rejections umpteen times, Kar has neither let the gender issue nor the per-ception of people about lingerie rattle her. “In a conservative country, we brought lingerie out of the closet and on the TV screen,” she says, adding that she has never been apologetic about her business.
>Continued on Page 4
“The conservative Indian mindset is steadily shifting”Tinder’s Taru Kapoor
For those who think that dat-ing app Tinder is definitely a ‘male’ thing, especially in a country like India, here’s
an eye-opener: women are more active and engaged on Tinder than men, reveals India head of Tinder Taru Kapoor.
Reason: the young urban Indian woman is more mobile, indepen-dent, self-confident and keen to develop her own self-identity than ever before. Kapoor, who joined Tinder in September 2015, points out India is one of its fastest grow-ing markets and the largest in Asia. One million ‘Super Likes’ are sent in India each week, with women sending Super Likes more often than men.
India, she points out, has wit-nessed a huge change over the last few years. A country where historically it has been very hard for women to choose, meet people and forge meaningful connections with ease — thanks to numerous structural and social barriers that have long existed — is making a cultural shift where women make
rapid strides in the workplace. Was she anxious when she was ap-
pointed the India head? After all, dating as a concept, is not only per-ceived as a male prerogative in the country but is also seen as taboo or risqué. Kapoor asserts she was never apprehensive.
While working for BCG and Sequoia Capital, she had observed how the Indian technology and consumer landscape evolved rap-idly. And after graduating from Harvard Business School, she wanted to work in an entrepre-neurial role with a startup that had global impact. “Tinder happened to be a perfect match,” she says.
The conservative Indian mindset is steadily shifting. Before Tinder, women often felt overwhelmed us-ing traditional dating sites because men could message anyone they wanted to, whether the woman was interested or not.
>Continued on Page 4
Diversity hires and quotas that favour women are making some of the men in Indian marketing and advertising very nervous
BY RAVI BALAKRISHNAN & SHEPHALI BHATT
MUMBAI
A strange squeamishness settles over even the most garrulous ad and marketing folk if you so much as broach the subject of gender diversity. Unless there’s a solid track record to trot out — in which case it is trotted out with considerable preening — most people make politically correct noises and leave it at that.
Off the record, you hear entirely dif-ferent stories. For instance, a woman heading a key vertical in a large FMCG is supposedly running it to the ground because she landed the job to meet the or-
ganisation’s globally mandated diversity quota and not because she was the best candidate.
Or a manager in yet another MNC who found himself being asked why his team wasn’t more gender diverse and then discovered that this lacuna was going to be part of his permanent re-cord as a demerit.
Or a global advertising award from a few years ago, where it was announced with great fanfare, that they’d had the highest number yet of women in the jury; an ad man who served on it found one of his co-jurors claim to fame was writing children’s books, leaving him to wonder if she was the best person to be determining who won at a pres-tigious gongfest with a stiff entrance fee.
Or the boss in an agency system whose bonus allegedly depends on the diversity of his team. Which has caused something of an existential crisis among some of his team members who are left wondering if they genuinely earned their promotions, or landed them so their boss would get the money he believed was due to him.
A large part of this could be dismissed as
the fairly predictable reaction of executives who’ve done the en-gineering and/or B-school regi-men, who find any sort of affir-mative action, an affront to their
notions of “competence” and “merit”. People who are a dime a
dozen in our corporate corridors, and can be found grousing about
“SJWs” and “political correctness gone mad” on their social media echo chamber of choice.
You can chalk up the rest to mortal dread of falling afoul or merely on the wrong side of an (almost invariably) globally imposed mandate.
As Navnit Singh, chairman and MD - India, Korn/Ferry International puts it, “Globally, MNCs are stressing on gender diversity; not just including more women in the senior management. Which is why MNCs in India and large Indian compa-nies are feeling the pressure too.” Pressure that gets transferred to firms like Korn/Ferry who are asked to include at least one woman in a list of 10 potential candidates.
>Continued on Page 4
INSIDEBE
On 3
BE checks in to see if Google and Tata Trust’s Internet Saathi program is working or not
BY DELSHAD IRANI
MUMBAI
Last year, 23-year-old Laxmi Rani from Patahensal in West Bengal held a smartphone for the first time when she became an Internet Saathi and em-barked on her maiden voyage into the Web. Fifteen months later, Rani tells us she’s trained over 700 women in how to use the Internet and now she wants to learn netbanking and how to use Paytm.
This is the story of women like Laxmi Rani who have never held or not been al-lowed to use a smartphone in their lives. Nor have they ever had access to the Net. However, a few months of learning the Internet ropes through Google and Tata Trust’s ‘Internet Saathi’ program and women in rural India are charting a new course for themselves and others. Saathis are using, and helping other women use the Internet to find informa-tion about health, government programs
and agriculture, how to make jalebisand sew saree blouses and to see what Mumbai and America look like.
Armed with a smartphone or tablet, Google’s newborn army of “power us-ers” are helping shut down spurious liquor bars in villages, find jobs for unemployed husbands and look up test scores and answers even their 14 year
old daughter’s school teacher doesn’t know. One Saathi helped reduce the number of female foeticide in her vil-lage by showing men and pregnant women photos of formed fetuses to raise awareness and empathy.
Alphabet-owned Google
partnered with Tata Trusts to kick off the program last year, after
years of trying to find the right model to increase digital literacy in the country. Now they are building a legion of female trainers in rural India who ply
dusty roads on retrofitted bicycles, go from village to village and train wom-en in how to use smartphones and the Internet. Currently, over 2.5 million women in 60,000 villages across 10 states have been trained by 18,000 Saathis trav-elling the countryside on their branded bicycles. Sapna Chadha, head of mar-keting at Google India says even there they had a curious learning. Not many women knew how to ride a bike. So, while they learnt how to take a selfie they also picked up another skill – riding a bicycle that gives them not just mobility but also establishes a sense of identity and status in the community.
Chadha tells us watching these women access the Net for the first time is a sight to behold. “It’s a source of power they’ve never had,” or not allowed to have by a fa-ther or husband who thinks she’d “break the phone”. One Saathi has been curious her whole life and now that she has the answers to all her questions a few swipes away, she can’t sleep at night.
Many Saathis don’t want their journey to end because it provides them with a sense of purpose. Like Parvati Khushwa from Dholpur in Rajasthan. One of her greatest achievements as a Saathi she
says is helping a disabled couple find a source of income by teaching them how to make pakodas via online videos. Khushwa wants to learn how to work a laptop next.
For now, women who wish to continue to be Saathis are encouraged to do so. However, connectivity is one of the big-gest hurdles in remote Indian villages. The workaround: target areas that are reasonably well connected. On the user front, for some women having access to Internet enabled devices for just a few hours in a week remains an impediment in picking up any real skills.
Nevertheless, in a world awash with “purpose-driven initiatives” by brands ‘Internet Saathi’ stands out as one that’s likely to have the most direct and imme-diate impact on a new power consumer group – women in rural India. “This isn’t a marketing program,” says Chadha. It’s Google’s mission (naturally) to reduce one of the worst digital gender gaps any-where in the world, this in a country with the second largest internet population.
Me a nwh i le, L a x m i R a n i f rom Patahensal is still waiting for approval on her netbanking application
Internet Saathis: Google’s Unlikeliest ‘Power Users’
Two of the most exciting new-age businesses in India have women at the helm. Here’s what got them there and keeps them going. By Rajiv Singh
Mallika Dua, the much-in-demand content-lady holds forth on the serious and the non-serious aspects of her lifeTHE BOLD
IN INDIA WOMEN ARE MORE ACTIVE AND ENGAGED ON TINDER THAN MEN, SAYS TINDER’S TARU KAPOOR
EYE-OPENERWorking for Dabur to me seemed almost like working for Doordarshan in an era of internet.
Patanjali deserves to be slapped for trying to feed the nonsense that somebody who is more modern has more problems.(for the Saundarya beauty cream ad)
TO THE AGENCY CREATIVE AGENCIES HAVE ZERO BALLS.
TO THE BRAND MANAGER YOU HAVE COME TO ME FOR A REASON, DO NOT TAKE AWAY THAT VERY REASON.
AT HOMEMy dad (Vinod Dua – the famous media personality) is the funniest person at home with his sense of humour and irreverence, especially for people who take themselves too seriously.
>Continued on Page 2
THE ART OF BEING SERIOUSLY FUNNY
The Defenders Of The Glass Ceiling
THE BEAUTIFULBY AMIT BAPNA
MUMBAI
BE SPECIAL
WOMEN’S DAY
SIDETAKEHeiress to billions creating virtual wardrobes
If you’ve ever wondered how globe-trotting celebrities and business executives manage to look so put together — and stay organised — the answer could be in a virtual wardrobe.Luxury wardrobe management service Vault provides an online virtual inventory of clients’ ward-robes, which can be accessed 24/7.Users can “walk through their wardrobe” online, pick their outfit, and get the clothes shipped to any city in the world withing 24 hours, according to the company. The items are stored in individual gar-ment bags in a climate-controlled facility in London.
Kazakhstani-born founder Mounissa Chodieva, who has a reported net worth of $75 mil-lion(£61 million), came up with the idea for Vault after spending a lot of time trying to manage her wardrobe while travelling the world on business.Chodieva was head of investor and public relations at Eurasian Natural Resources Corporation (ENRC), her billionaire father Patokh Chodiev’s mining compa-ny, but she left in 2014 to focus on Vault. This was after ENRC delisted from the London Stock Exchange in 2013 amid fraud allegations.
Source: Business Insider
indigenousTHE NOT-SO-SECRET HISTORY OF CANDOURGRISHMA PATIL, ON OFFLINE LINGERIE MODEL
HAVE FUNBrands need to be able to laugh at themselves. Most brands really do
not have a sense of humour.
IN GRAPHIC DETAIL
WOMEN BEHIND THE HOT SEAT
THE NEW-AGE VOICE: A JWT FEMALE TRIBES STUDY
On 2
EVEolution
REAL PEOPLEON REEL FEMPOWEROn 4
WILL SKIN +VE CRACK THE FAIREST CODE?
ALL’S NOT FAIR
THE ECONOMIC TIMES MARCH 08-14, 2017
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The problem with in-terviewing a person known mostly for her comic timing is that one ends up expecting
roll-on-the-f loor moments, by the dozen. Real life is different, and can be less funny. This in-terview was mostly a strait-laced affair but for the intermittent times when Mallika Dua went full-throttle with her trademark Sarojini Nagar Delhi accent to describe a situation or a conver-sation. Dua first gained attention with her just over 3 minute short-form video ‘Shit People Say@ Sarojini Nagar’. It spawned many more videos making an internet celebrity of the Delhi-girl who has since moved to Mumbai. Brands like KFC, DNA, Google, Koovs and Hyundai today consider her a source of engaging content for fans and followers. Here’s how she got there:
“I thought advertising was the most creative job.”
After a degree in theatre from the US, Dua decided to not wait for the elusive big break and ended up joining McCann Worldgroup in Delhi as intern. She gravitated to the creative department since she believed “servicing was the shittiest job”. Within a year, she got a chance to move to Contract Delhi with her boss, and started
working on Domino’s Pizza and then on Dabur. It is the latter that she counts as the turning point of her life in advertising.
The ‘D’ Moment“Working for Dabur to me seemed almost like working for Doordarshan in an era of inter-net”, she recalls. Every single day, every brief, debrief, meet-ing, we were sitting and writing for the consumer — the girl — and we used to get a headache match-ing the client-needs of making it aspirational and regressive at the same time. The decision-making was super slow. One ad film took a year before it was approved. It was frustrating, she says, even though the people at the agency were nice.
The Silver Lining Those years taught me an im-portant lesson, she shares. “One may not agree with what’s going on but till there is a better op-tion, hang on. Do not kill your chances.” Meanwhile, she tried to find happiness elsewhere and started doing theatre and audi-tions, even while in advertising. The good part of advertising, was that “it used all my faculties - I used to write, sing, do voice-over.” Except, possibly acting? We used to do casting for clients and all of them wanted thin and pretty girls, she recalls. “I did not
know what requirement I would fit.” And anyways that would have been unethical, she adds.
The other lesson learnt was that brands need to be able to laugh at themselves. “Most brands really do not have a sense of humour.” Dua’s Rules of the GameA theatre degree and advertis-ing experience help Dua strike the balance between content and brand. While working on brands,
she’s clear there won’t be more than two rounds of back and forth. That is rather ballsy, we say, much more t h a n mo st t he
creative agencies? “Creative agencies have zero balls”, she replies with trademark can-dour. Brand, content and Branded Content“When clients ask for more brand-mentions, I tell them that neither is this film their product-window nor am I their brand am-bassador, so there’s no point expecting these things. You have come to me for a reason, do not take away that very reason.” She claims to have not
lost any business yet because of the straight-talk: it is all done ami-cably. To be fair, the brand guys are very nice about it, she feels. Lluis Ruiz Ribot, CMO, KFC India shares the reasons for associat-ing with Dua while launching the Friendship bucket last year. “Her content is not just funny, but relat-able and believable. For a brand like ours that is light-hearted and authentic, she makes for a great fit.” Currently the brand is work-ing with Dua for the launch of its 5in1 longer box offering.
Dua likes the philosophy of Only Much Louder (OML) the agency managing her business, whose CEO Vijay Nair told her early-on that creative people should not be made to talk money and negotiate. It is not fair for somebody to haggle one minute and then be expected to bash out something creative the next minute, according to him. The ads and their ‘Jaago Re’ momentHer stand on the current bunch of ads and what are they doing to break (or propagate) the stereo-type.
On top of the hate-list is the Patanjali Saundarya beauty-cream ad. (She actually mimes it aloud and many eyes turn to our table.) “Patanjali deserves to be slapped for this ad for trying to feed the nonsense that somebody who is more modern has more
problems.” She accedes to the fact that advertising is riding on people’s insecurities but even then, finds it to be really bad. In her view, it should be taught in communication-schools on what bad advertising is.
She doesn’t like ads that show women wearing white costumes and prancing about during their periods: “nobody dresses up like that unless it is a play perfor-mance and the lady has to dress up in white.” Her grouse: don’t show us these ridiculous ideas, rather show us what people go about doing in real life. She also feels that the recent Aamir Khan ad for Star Plus is a case of lazy story-telling. It seemed like it was thought, executed and marketed all in two days. A good ad would always have an impact irrespec-tive of who’s acting in it, is her view and vice versa.
Is Fem-vertising working?“Everyone is trying to sell some-thing based on a lie, but as long as that is being done in a decent and believable manner and is help-ing people, then why not?” She is unsure whether the deluge of ads serve the desired purpose. But what she is sure about is that it is better than the advertising that preceded it, which was consis-tently regressive.
There is so much pressure by peer groups, magazines, billboards and TV ads that perpetuate the idea that fair is the ideal— Nandita Das
BY RAVI BALAKRISHNAN
MUMBAI
It’s a classic fairness cream ad setup: a young basket-ball player comes in grimy and sweaty but trium-phant, after a day shooting hoops. Cue her grandma ig-
noring the trophy and lamenting the effect all this mucking about in the sun will have on her already dark complexion (the original Tamil script has the words kari kunjalam that translates roughly into ‘dark darling’). Except, in-stead of the expected product windows and the girl turning into a positively ghastly shade of pale, our young hero gives the prejudiced old coot a piece of her mind, and tosses an all too famil-iar looking tube into a conveniently located trashcan. Released last year, the ad for Skin +ve from Hyderabad based FMCG Banjara’s raked up over 291,000 views.
Around the same time, its makers swore off the fairness category. Why, we ask, would a fledgling brand choose to walk away from what by some estimates is 75% of the skin care category?
A c c o r d i n g t o R a m e s h Viswanathan, managing direc-tor, Vishal Personal Care, the de-cision was born out of research. What they found was a simmering resentment against the category. The first question was about ef-ficacy and the second, typically voiced by more evolved custom-ers was ‘why the need to be fair and why this obsession with fair skin?’ Viswanathan recalls, “As
we dug deeper, we found complexes and stigma. Some people even cried
during our interactions while talking about how the bias worked against them: in terms of mar-riage, boys, work and so on.” And so the decision to make a cream that delivered on the promise of hydration, nourishment and pro-tection, but one that wouldn’t ad-dress fair skin at all, and back it with a campaign that encouraged people to be #proudofmycolour.
It’s too early to say if this quixotic approach has delivered consider-ing Skin +ve is still very much a work in progress. Banjara’s is currently in expansion mode, taking Skin +ve and the rest of its range across the country — Mumbai and Punjab are priority markets. It’s consolidating in its home market — south India — present in both traditional and
modern trade besides buffering global outposts in South East Asia and the Middle East. Sustaining the social buzz around Skin +ve has receded in the order of priori-ties, with the posts on its 200,000 strong Facebook page becoming intermittent. Banjara’s current flagship is its hair colour range which accounts for 26% of the ap-proximately ̀ 100 crore turnover, Skin +ve comes a distant fourth in its current portfolio.
However Viswanathan believes the brand has a lot of room to grow considering it’s a new product, one that challenges established
paradigms. He says, “The big-ger challenge is breaking away from the habit of years of usage and scores of brands condition-ing people through advertising. Just go to a super market and try finding a cream without words like fairness, skin lightening or whitening.” A mainline cam-paign should be in the offing next financial year since the team has found social media platforms a little limiting, especially when it comes to reaching women. Asked if walking away from the lucrative fairness segment was a tough deci-sion, Viswanathan acknowledges it was but adds, “We have done fair-ness cream in the past and we do more business with our current offering than we used to. When we know it’s not right, why take the path of least resistance?”
Partha Sinha, vice chairman and managing director, McCann Worldgroup is happy about the brand inspiring multiple nar-ratives in the beauty and skin space, where the dominant story has always been one about trans-formation. “If it’s done well,” he says, “the other narrative of being comfortable in what you are could have many takers. Whether it will be a big success or no depends on execution.” On the other hand, marketing consultant Tarun Chauhan believes anything that goes against a dominant cultural idiom is doomed to failure. And irrespective of the protests of a few people, the obsession with fair skin is a cultural idiom; some-thing that’s near impossible to change via advertising. He says, “What you can do is make money off it which is what the fairness brands are doing. It’s what Nike has done with fitness and Harley Davidson with the spirit of the 70s in America.”
Changing cultural idioms, may be an uphill slog, but there’s yet one trump card that Viswanathan and Banajara’s have up their sleeves — efficacy or the lack thereof. He says, “The product we have put out is superi-or to every fairness cream in the market in all care parameters. It only doesn’t make people fairer! But if all fairness creams were really doing that, we should be seeing European skin colour for the tons of fairness creams sold.”
BY SHRAMANA GANGULY
AHMEDABAD
There is a sudden burst of lingerie brands including Candour London seeking to woo girls and women. How and why did your journey start? Having lived in Central London for four years for graduation, I got acquainted with brands like Victoria’s Secret, Agent Provocateur, M&S and GapBody. Like any other girl, lingerie was always a preference when it came to shopping. The fashion, range of colors, variety was something that kept me hooked.
However, back home in India, the excitement was missing. It was monotonous and boring. The need to improve and bring in a sense of youth fashion, fun and brilliance to Indian lingerie market trig-gered Candour London.
The supremely beautiful and bril-liant range of designs, colours I saw in London helped me identify the gap in the Indian market in terms of availability, excellence, exposure and workmanship.
What do you make of the surge of online lingerie? Are there gaps that your brand can fill?
The online market is based on products originated and designed in countries like China which do no cater to a particular target or customer needs.
Candour aspires to be the lead-ing value premium lingerie brand for “youth” in the subcontinent. With increasing demand for fash-ion products in lingerie, we hope to provide youthful prints, colors, styles and silhouettes.
Considering India has a higher population on the heavier side,
the fairer sex seek right size straps that do not
dig in the shoulder and correct cup sizes rather than random patterns and styles. Candour will work
on new innovation and research pertain-
ing to bra technologies and to ease all discomfort.
Our business model is based on fast moving fashion which is seen in outerwear but lingerie hasn’t seen it yet. We will be having a product drop every 2.5-3 months which will have variations in the prints, colors et al so that my customer always gets a different product each time she shops. This will end the habit of cus-tomers buying lingerie twice a year to buying lingerie at least 4-5 times a year.
How do you intend matching mar-ket requirements?We have our own contracted factories in Sri Lanka and India with coordinated design studio to create concepts and merchandise like none other. Customisation of international styles and colors to the Indian context “Think global and act Local” is the underlining philosophy. We strongly believe that differentiation through in-novation and technology is the way forward. Women’s lingerie is highly technical to manufacture and needs skilled labour. We seek to open up our own unit in the next two years to accelerate manufac-turing. On the retail front, I hope to more than double my presence to over 500 MBOs in 2017 in addition to company-owned outlets.
The Not-So-Secret History of Candour
Grishma Patil, director, Candour London on add-ing excitement to lingerie and why the offline
model works better
Will Skin +Ve with its anti-fairness slant be able to crack a market where ‘Who’s The Fairest Of Them All’ is a question that millions take very seriously?
IT’S TOO EARLY TO SAY IF THIS QUIXOTIC APPROACH HAS DELIVERED CONSIDERING SKIN +VE IS STILL VERY MUCH A WORK IN PROGRESS
AN
IRB
AN
BO
RA
indigenousAll’s Not Fair
One skin care brand’s stand against discrimination
Continued from Page 1 >>
THE ART OF BEING SERIOUSLY FUNNY
The need to bring
in a sense of youth fashion, fun and brilliance triggered Candour London
Mallika Dua & her many frames
“If all fairness creams were really doing their job, we should be see-ing European
skin colour for the tons of fairness creams sold.”Ramesh ViswanathanVishal Personal Care (Banjara)
I am
my
own biggest barrier to achieving myfull potential
Wom
enar
eth
e largest emerging market inthe
world
Wom
enar
e not just consumers but wealthcreators
India stands out as a country where women do not see themselves – relative to the Global average as barriers to their success, they were signifi cantly more confi dent in feeling they would achieve their goals
However, they’re signifi cantly more likely to suggest their family, parents or spouse presented barriers tothem achieving their full potentialTHE ‘BENIGN PATRIARCHY’
Over the next decade,women will wield enormous infl uence over politics, sport,
business and society
THE DOW JANE EFFECTThe greater the power of
women, the greater the country’s economic success
- OECD
8 of the top 10 Indian Banks are run by
women, with women controlling some 40%
of India’s assets*
Empowering women in India
would add$700 bn
of additional GDP by 2025,
upping the country’s
annual GDP growth by 1.4%
MCKINSEY
4454
60 59 57 55
31
Glob
al A
v
Sing
apor
e
Chin
a
Taiw
an
Vie
tnam
Thai
land
Indi
a
79% Indian women felt onscreen role models had been important in life
Yet 88% believe that women are too often portrayed as
sexual objects in movies / on TV
92% of women think femininity
is a strength not a weakness
THE NEW-AGE VOICE
74% Indian women feel it’s never been a better
time to be a woman
Onscreen role models had inspired
46% Indian women to be more
ambitious
93% of Indian women believe
that technology has empowered them
GRAPHIC: BHAVIN GAJJAR(Source: JWT Women’s Index & Female Tribes study)
INGRAPHICDETAIL
2THE ECONOMIC TIMES MARCH 08-14, 2017
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There are still many causes worth sacrificing for, so much history yet to be made —Michelle Obama
In their first ever media interaction, mothers and wives of industry bigwigs tell us how they view the perks and challenges of their loved one’s job. By Shephali Bhatt
“You have m a d e a 72 -year-o l d r e -
ally nervous,” says Joe (Joseph George) before connecting us to his mother - Mercy George - who has been living in Ahmedabad since 1973. Our first attempt at making her feel at ease, therefore, was by asking her if the family calls her son ‘Joe’ just like the advertising industry does: “All of us call him ‘Jibu’.”
Jibu was always a low-maintenance child, his mother tells us. “He did get into trouble often dur-ing his childhood though, given that he was a little overactive back then. I would sometimes scold him. Later, he became very polite, calm, and sensitive. He would pick up things real fast - be it sport, mu-sic, or even reading.”
Did he take after his scientist father, in that case? “Well, I think he takes after me,” she says. “There are many similarities: sport, music, getting along with people, not being fussy or demanding. I’m a good person, you know,” she quips. His father has always been absorbed in the world of rockets and satellites, she clarifies. Which is why it’s the fa-ther who often asks Joe if the claims made in ads are true or are admen taking common people for a ride. Mercy, on the other hand, appreciates the ads for their emotive quotient. Tanishq’s commercials - of all the TVCs Lowe makes - are her favourite. Are there any commercials made by Lowe that she dislikes or disapproves of? Well, a few, but she wouldn’t tell us which ones.
In fact, Mercy is aware of all the brands Joe handles. If you go to her house in Ahmedabad now, you will f i n d r e a d y folders neatly archiving all newspaper cut-tings of articles in which her
son and daughter-in-law, Shubha (who hails from the same industry) have been featured. None of those articles mention her only pain point from her “gem of a son”: “If he says ‘I’ll call you in five minutes,’ he never does.” The call is often returned the next day. Looks like Jibu ought to take a leaf out of his client-agency rulebook and avoid over-promising here as well.
It may have been an arranged marriage over a decade ago, it certainly looks a lot like love now. Sampada, Bobby
Pawar’s better half and the moth-er of his two kids - Iti and Ari, has been a homemaker for 15 of the 15.5 years of their marriage. But Pawar and wife talk shop 75% of the time they’re together. “He shows me 90% of the stuff he writes. He takes my opinion on his work seriously.”
It is through her that we discover how hard he finds any conversa-tion around money. “For him, it’s all about doing great work. Negotiating salary isn’t his stron-gest suit,” she says. Yet, when he accidentally finds out what his peers are making, it does feel like a kick in the stomach. “But Bobby is a writer at heart. He is the happi-est when he is writing,” she says.
At his level, she gets to see his aggressive avatar more often, thanks to pitches. It also marks the advent of a cuss-fest. “Every phone call is replete with gaalees (swear words). Doesn’t matter if the kids are around or listening,” she says, laughing out loud. “Bobby has a sharp tongue, and a habit of speak-ing his mind.” When the chaos of a pitch settles, he eagerly gives her a lowdown of everything: the three best ideas, the execution, the last minute intervention to save the pitch presentation.
And so, she got his side of the con-versation when Pawar took the fall in the aftermath of the Ford
Figo fiasco. “We had just reached Kashmir when he got a call from his boss.” The family and friends had no clue how to get back to re-laxation-mode. “He cracked a few jokes to lighten the mood. Friends were comforting him as well. But that incident shook him up.” That was one hard evening to wade through, she recounts, especially with all the media attention. “We were struggling to find network in the valley, and when we’d arrive in a decent network zone, his inbox would get bombarded with mes-sages, mails, missed calls.”
In a weak moment, Pawar did feel diffident but Sampada was sure this too shall pass. “Unlike him, I was confident that Bobby Pawar will never be jobless. I told him to trust in his abilities and wait for the day to end, and by morning he will get three job offers.” The next day he got more than three offers.
Even after all these years, she gets goosef lesh narrating the incident. It is this episode that keeps Pawar from taking a sab-batical. “He feels there’s a lot to be done in order to ensure a se-cure future for the kids,” she tells us. Nothing would make her hap-pier than seeing him write with-out a care in the world though. Except his presence at the PTAs and kids’ annual functions with-out her having to remind his sec-retary to keep his calendar free for that time. But that’s a battle lost before it’s begun.
Ena and Shashi Sinha have been married for over 33 years. In the last three decades, Ena
has learnt enough about sales, media, marketing, Goafest, and BARC, to wax eloquent about anything from Abbys to Audience Measurement. All her education has been acquired via osmosis. Sinha doesn’t talk shop with her as much as he talks shop over the phone whenever he is home.
“The man loves to talk, he likes to be in control, and if he feels passionate about something, he completely devotes himself to-wards it. I have learnt whatever I have about his business while he is talking to people on the phone - which happens nine out of 10 times he enters the house from work.” Ena doesn’t mind the unso-licited gyaan since it ensures she doesn’t find herself at a loss when their friend circle discusses work during industry parties. Not that it makes much of a difference to her life. She runs a play school for children in Andheri and has been
involved with teaching kids much before her arranged marriage with Mr IPG Mediabrands. Most of her wedded life went in raising their kids all by herself because Sinha would leave for work at 8 AM and return at 11 PM.
To top it all, the man, we hear, is notorious for not doing any house-hold chores. “He can’t tell a sauce pan from a frying pan. If the bulb in the bathroom has fused, he will sit in the dark but not fix it.” You know this is all coming from a nice place when she follows this up with: “But I have learnt about kindness from him. He’s always very generous and giving to those who deserve it but aren’t as fortunate.” Of his many quirks and idiosyncrasies, she fondly describes his admiration for Dr Verghese Kurien and his loyalty for the brands he handles (or has handled in his FCB days). “We only use Amul Dairy products. He only wears and gifts Zodiac shirts. Thank God it’s a shirt brand and I can wear whichever brand I like,” she quips.
After all these years of exchang-ing notes on each other’s life only on weekends, does she ask him to finally retire, or semi-retire maybe? “Not at all. I’m so not used to having him around all the time. It’ll be a menace.” We break into laughter. Well, at the pace at which he is winning pitches, it doesn’t seem like he wants to say the R-word anytime soon either.
“Unlike him, I was confident that Bobby Pawar will never be jobless”Some lesser known things about the MD & CCO of Publicis Worldwide South Asia, straight from his wife
Women Behind The Hot Seat E
ven as the entire cast of AIB Knockout (roast) dealt with an FIR and several empty and loaded threats on social media, 54-year-old Jaya Bhat
was working away in a nationalised bank on the outskirts of Mumbai - until her son Tanmay called to inform her of something that was going to be all over the media in a few minutes. “Those 10 days were quite tough,” she recalls. “There was no way to contact him and not much I could do except reach out to the mothers of the other AIB guys to fig-ure out where they stand on the matter. His father was panicked, glued to the TV for updates.” But Jaya had a feeling it’ll all be fine soon. “Maybe I wasn’t as ex-posed to the reality as his father was, but I believed in God. I knew Tanmay had not done anything so bad for him to get punished.”
Having said that, she doesn’t subscribe to everything her son says or does. She does subscribe to AIB on YouTube though. “He does make slight mistakes sometimes, but nothing that will bring a bad name to us. He has always gone out of his way to give to people and expected nothing in return.” Know that this is a mother who saw her child battle harsh body-shaming comments while grow-ing up. “He used to get hurt when people used to tease him, or compare him with his cousins. I taught him to build skills that would make people like him, see be-
Being Tanmay Bhat’s motherIs it tougher than being the co-founder of AIB? Jaya Bhat has the answer
yond his weight. He’d gather people around and tell them jokes, and it worked.”
That Tanmay was great at public speaking is something she had ob-served early on. “I knew he would do well for himself in whatever he does. I would give him the example of a cob-
bler and say: I don’t mind you mend-ing shoes also as long as the biggest people around say they want their shoes done by you.” She’s certainly happy with everything Tanmay has achieved: “He has done it on his own, with no media background in the family.”
“I really enjoyed their podcast with SRK, can watch it multiple times. Even their video on net neutrality was very good. I learnt a lot from it,” she says. Her only grouse (not sur-prisingly) is that he doesn’t spend enough time with her. “He is a com-plete workaholic. It gets so difficult to reach him sometimes. I follow him
on Twitter, Instagram, and now even Snapchat to know what he is upto. He does make an effort though.”
Bhat’s mother tells us she’s glad the media attention has not gone to his head. “He is still focused on his writing. His father is quite keen on getting him married. I don’t need a ‘bahu’ for myself. I just want him to experience the joys of a companion-ship as and when he finds it.”
Overheard in my dining room Why Ena Sinha doesn’t want her husband, the CEO of IPG Mediabrands India, to retire just yet
Joe Jeeta Wahi ‘Jibu’MullenLoweLintas Group’s Joseph George was a low-maintenance child, says his mother
On a phone l i ne con nec ti ng Muzaffarpur to Mumbai, 62 year old Premsheela Kumari tells us she has thoroughly enjoyed
watching every series her son Arunabh Kumar has made so far. He makes “pro-grammes for the internet”, she says.
Kumari feels proud of her son now, but that wasn’t the case years ago when he left his engineering job to pursue an art form that often brought failure and disap-pointment to those who dreamt of making it big in the mayanagri of Bombay (now Mumbai). Of course now the narrative has changed to: “He had these qualities right from the beginning. It’s just that we didn’t understand it back then. He would see pictures in his elder brother’s books and start weaving lovely stories.”
Kumari reminisces about how even as
a child Arunabh had a filmmaker’s eye: “Your eyelashes aren’t long enough and they don’t curl up,” he’d tell her; “Maa, tum heroinee (sic) nahin ban sakti” (You can’t become an actress, Maa). Kumari has taught at a government school all her life, retiring as the school’s principal a
couple of years ago. When Arunabh took tuitions during
his school days, he would ask his mother to wake him up at 5 AM. “I’d keep sleep-ing and he would go on his own. When I’d wake up, I’d worry if someone had kidnapped him. So I would go all the way to the teacher’s house and peek from the window to make sure he was there.”
She still watches over the thirty-four year old version of her son, although he now keeps his issues to himself, like many other kids who stay away from their parents. She doesn’t press him to talk to her regularly - “I understand that he is very busy with work.” She quickly adds with a laugh: “Pushing him to get mar-ried isn’t the same as putting pressure on your son though! God knows what has happened to these guys.”
“Maa, tum heroinee nahin ban sakti”Arunabh Kumar’s mother on the first signs of his interest in filmmaking
Read the full version of all these stories online at etbrandequity.com
Sampada Pawar
Premsheela Kumari
Jaya Bhat
Mercy GeorgeEna Sinha
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In advertising you are paid to tell someone else’s story. You are like a nanny. It is never your own baby —Anuja Chauhan
“At times, it helps being a little deaf”Zivame’s Richa Kar
While acknowledging the that lingerie catego-ry is judgemental, what has ironically helped her in changing the perception of people, in-cluding women, about her business has been her gender. “My voice as a woman trying to sell an intimate category product to women has been an advantage,” she says. The imagery and tonality of the brand comes from the fact that it is headed by a woman.
Kar, who pulled out of the daily operations of Zivame last month to focus more on stra-tegic initiatives of the brand, believes that there are merits being a women leader. “I
can improvise change,” she says, adding that a woman leader can have policies around workplaces, can recruit more women and can support them
if they want to take a career break. She wonders if all these factors would ever play out in the corporate world where there are not many women leaders.
“The conservative Indian mindset is steadily shifting”Tinder’s Taru Kapoor
Tinder, Kapoor claims, introduced something brand new to empower female users: the double opt-in. Users can only contact one another if they both mutually express interest in connecting. Since conversation can only be initiated once mutual interest is expressed, women do not get bombarded by messaging from men that they are not interested in.
Tinder, she believes, is an effective way to meet new people. Kapoor shares an anecdote to substan-tiate her point. Last year, someone in Bangalore had formed an alternative music band, and he met three of his four fellow band members on Tinder. A match may lead to a fun date, a new friendship, a lasting relationship, a collaboration or partnership based on shared interests or even a mar-riage, she adds.
So how does it feel to be a woman CEO of a dating company in India? “The feeling is empowering, and I wish exactly that for every wom-an in India,” she says, “to be em-powered today and every day.”
The Defenders Of The Glass ...Adds Korn/Ferry’s Singh, “Some
companies are willing to compro-mise on work experience, skills, and competence even. It’s not like if there’s a man who is a 100% fit for the job and a woman who meets only 50% of requirements, they’ll hire her. But if the ratio is 100:70, the woman has a reasonably high probability.”
Of course, if there’s a lack, you can blame it squarely on the fact that the career paths and grooming have only recently become a stated pri-ority when it comes to women. As K Sudarshan, managing partner- India and regional VP - Asia, EMA Partners says, “We advise our cli-ents to create space for women where there’s a pipeline for them to eventu-ally lead. This diversity debate is 10 years old. 20 years ago, there were all of three women in my engineer-ing class of 70. It will take another 20 years of effort to change.”
Even when it comes to diversity, marketers are faring a lot bet-ter than their agency partners. Meenakshi Menon, founder & chair-person, Spatial Access is clear that, “With agencies, gender becomes a disadvantage because everything is controlled by men. Women are not
treated as equals: One or two, may-be, if they’re old or have been around for some years. I wonder how this doesn’t concern everybody. It’s not like there’s any lack of talent.”
Perhaps along with burnishing tal-ent and implementing an agenda, there needs to be an effort to sell the concept of why diversity is a good thing to people who’ve been happy working in a proverbial ‘boy’s club’ and are at a loss to deal with change. Because as of now they are too many people conspiracy theorising, ques-tioning or merely wondering aloud like a creative did: “This is a little like reservations. Is correction cor-rect or is overcorrection fair?”
Continued from Page 1 >>
The Bold & The Beautiful
THE WOMENSmriti Advani, Age: 32BANGALORE
Nike: It’s feisty, fearless and fun! And all the girls chosen to represent their respec-tive sports are totally badass! The only thing that comes across a bit jarring is having Deepika Padukone in it. It was probably a brand compulsion but I think it would have been nicer to shoot the video minus a celebrity and hero the real ath-letes.
Ariel: I’ve always hated the typical detergent ads showing a ma-tronly woman lamenting about “kitne daag hain”, so this made for a refreshing change. It also struck a deeply personal chord as my dad never ever helps around the house while my mum juggles work and home chores. As a full time mum and a professional myself, I definitely feel we need more campaigns like this to talk about how men too have an equal responsibility in handling domestic chores.Anouk: Again, I have my personal biases for really liking this cam-paign. I’ve just re-joined work after a 6 month maternity break and thank my stars every day that I work for an organisation that encour-ages women to come back to the workforce even after a baby. I think more Indian employers need to wake up to the fact that pregnancy or motherhood is not a handicap and that with the right kind of or-ganisational support (day care, flexi hours, etc) they can ensure that women can rise within the organization, without a career break.
Tanushree Kumar, Age: 33MUMBAI
Nike: It’s inspiring to see women from all walks of life going through hardship yet going strong and who have achieved new heights in sports but aren’t too well promoted. Also, it’s an addictive music track. Ariel: A very powerful and insight-ful campaign, especially when it comes to detergents. In today’s
world when we speak about equality at work, we forget about it back at our home, where it should start from. The ad leaves us thinking about sharing our day-to-day responsibilities.Anouk: Women over the years have gone through major dis-crimination at work during their pregnancy. Be it promo-tions or being appraised for the work they did. Myntra brings out a determined and strong ad about a woman, who can bal-ance work with pregnancy. Employers should start respect-ing expecting mothers by supporting them at work and not by creating end-of-career situations.
Devina Kothari, Age: 33RAJKOT
Nike: One of the best campaigns that I have come across in recent times featuring ath-letes I didn’t know of. It actually made me relate more to the story because we are all in some way or the other one of these un-sung athletes in our own lives.Ariel: The video was not just about a power-ful message, encouraging men to do their fair share of housework but it also encour-
ages all of us to do our fair share of work to reconstruct a society based on equality.Anouk: Brilliantly executed campaign that made my head roll and triggered many social conversations. If I were to add a cognitive layer, I would rather see this video as more about ‘individualism vs the herd mentality’ in our society rather than just social biases against free spirited, new age women.
Liril girl
The Liril film launched in mid-70s was possibly the first to show a
bikini-clad girl in Indian advertising, according to Kailash Surendranath, the ad filmmaker, who directed the film. It also marked a watershed in the portrayal of the Indian woman in soap ads: “prior to that she was always shown as very demure and mostly fully clad.” A girl enjoying her bath and prancing under a waterfall (in Kodaikanal) was a novelty for the Indian audience. It was met with an overwhelming response. Life was never the same for Karen Lunel who acquired a cult-status as the first Liril girl. Incidentally, the wild exuberance that she displayed was in equal mea-sure good acting, and the fact that the water was freezing cold, reveals Surendarnath after all these years.
Surf’s Lalitaji
Unilever and its ad agency Lintas launched a one woman army
to take on the competitively priced Nirma. The idea of samajhdar Lalitaji was inspired by her creator Alyque Padamsee’s mother who always stressed on not just bachat but ‘value for money’ as she haggled with the vegetable vendor over ̀ 2.
Rasna Girl
Rasna ads for many years were made by JS Films, founded by co-
py-writer Jayendra Panchapakesan and cinematographer PC Sriram. Ankita Jhaveri, the Rasna girl started working on the brand when she was around 3 years old and contin-ued to be the face of the soft drink concentrate for next 5 years or so. Recalls Jayendra, “the films were all about things that a little girl of her age would do – playing around, hav-ing a birthday party, talking to the toys, having a pet puppy etc.” Once she grew up it was a mammoth task to find the next Rasna girl as the re-placement, he adds.
Ayurvedic Concepts’ Dadima
Ava Mukherji, the smart aleck Dadima from the Ayurvedic
Concepts commercials was as com-fortable gabbing about processors as she was recommending remedies. Dadima was created by Suresh Manian at Contract. Says Joono Simon who worked on the campaign, “Himalaya needed a big differen-tiation, to stand apart from other cosmetic brands. Ava was a unique ce-lebrity. She’d worked as a copywriter in Kolkata, understood craft and even pointed out a few nuances.”
Tanishq Remarriage Ad
The agency (Lowe Lintas) wasn’t looking to cast a dusky woman
to play the bride’s role, the team just thought she was good for the part. Later they were pleasantly surprised when people appreciated that bit. It was purely accidental.
Anouk - The Calling
Hectic Content’s Shamik Sen Gupta had directed this video.
His wife was working almost till the last day of her delivery so the issue is quite close to his heart.
The women of Airtel: The boss and the 4G girl
Sheer accident and not fempow-ertising birthed these iconic
women characters according to Agnello Dias, co-founder of Taproot Dentsu. While the hard as nails boss cooking a meal created quite an uproar, Dias says, “To my mind, she was cooking for herself since she was going to be eating; but the whole idea was to show something she’d done since we had to bring in video streaming. I realised there are so many ads that show the woman purely as a housewife or in office, but showing both is a problem.”
The original Airtel 4G commercial was scheduled to have two guys
facing off. Realising this was a fairly clichéd scenario, which would lead to another ad full of stubble and rip-pling muscles, the characters were changed to women purely because it would be more refreshing. Sasha Chettri, the Airtel 4G girl, was hired because she looked different from the other girl in the ad. Then as Dias puts it, “It took on a life of its own as her face struck different kinds of chords.” He admits, “If I wanted to make a statement, it would have been a girl beating a boy.”
THE MEN Amar Kaushik, Age: 33MUMBAI
Nike: The film has been beautifully shot. The best part of the video is the way the girls are presented – strong. For me that’s what women are in whatever they do. It’s a fresh and welcome change from ‘Fairness Cream’ ads.Ariel: This is my favourite one - firstly because of the emotional value (I became a father to a daughter few years back).
Secondly, it’s an eye opener for many of us. We often ignore our mothers and wives struggling with daily chores and careers every-day but get hurt when this happens to our daughters. Sad reality. Anouk: A true picture of what’s happening to our women who aspire to be successful professionally and have a family life as well. It’s happening to many career-oriented women who want to pause for a maternity break. The video successfully portrays the strength that women have - emotionally and physically, in all stages of their lives.
Gaurav Kapuria, Age: 44DELHI
Nike: Even as femininity gets defined and redefined on our screens with unflinching regularity, Nike jumps into the ring with this breathless hymn to choreographed sporting ac-tion designed to seduce. And it does a splendid job. In the post ‘Chak-De’
world, the parkour jump on the car roof sending the man ducking for cover is now par for the course. Well done, all!Ariel: The Ariel ad makes one think sympathetically of all the men who will never get this ad. And of all the others who would, and will still not do shit about it.Anouk: Seeing Uma complement Shaheen on her dress that ‘almost hides the baby bump’, and later in the film stopping short of naming her pregnant state are moments of epipha-ny. Shaheen’s decision to strike out on her own is perfectly reasoned, barring one point that makes me uncomfortable. While the film makes the point that maternity and profes-sional success need not be mutually exclusive, what is equal-ly true is that maternity leave is a woman’s right, and not a concession one makes to her. For me the film fails to address this crucial distinction. So, not bold enough.
Sharan Bhalla, Age: 30MUMBAI
Nike: Brilliant. I love the fact that they’ve broken every stereotype there is for sports in our country and shot an ad that’s so in your face yet aesthetically brilliant. And the fact that they’ve showcased ev-ery sport we play in India. It’s refreshing to see cricket sans Dhoni & Co. and no
Sindhu or Nehwal for badminton. Ariel: So thoughtful, it makes one think twice. The patriarchal ste-reotypes exist no more. And when we expect women to help us earn, then we too should help them in return. The money shot? The fact that it’s shot through a father’s perspective. Where it’s experience that is talking and seeking forgiveness and change. Aligning it to the life of a modern working woman - brilliance. Anouk: I thought the Anouk ad was a bit too over dramatic, which is probably why I did not enjoy it as much as the other two. While Nike is supposed to be over the top and Ariel, subtle, they stick to their core. Anouk as a theme looked out of place when it came to execu-tion. No complaints about performances or concept, but the whole script or screenplay was a tad overdone in my view.
BY DELSHAD IRANI & AMIT BAPNAMUMBAI
Over the last decade or so, marketers latched onto a new genre of advertising that took up women’s issues – real and some surreal - and created films around them. We asked people – women and men - what they really think about some of the famous ads in the genre of ‘fempowertising’.
We showed them Nike’s powerhouse film from last year, ‘Da Da Ding’ that had the likes of Facebook’s Sheryl Sandberg publicly praising the commercial. The second is Ariel’s award-winning ‘Share The Load’ campaign that took on a familiar problem in most Indian homes: Why must women alone do all household chores, in addition to managing work and family life? And the third is a film by Myntra’s Anouk that dwells into the issues pregnant women face in the workplace. Here’s what some real people had to say about ad-reel women.
Real People On Reel Fempower
EVEolution
Nike
Ariel
Anouk
BE traces the journey of women’s depiction in Indian advertising, and digs out the lesser known stories behind some of its iconic female-characters
1970s
1980s
1990s
2013
2015
2014 – 17
THEN
NOW
Regn.No.MAHENG/2002/6711Volume 16 Issue No. 10Published for the Proprietors, Bennett Coleman & Company Ltd. by R. Krishnamurthyat The Times Of India Building, Dr. D.N.Road, Mumbai 400 001Tel. No. (022) 6635 3535, 2273 3535, Fax- (022)-2273 1144 and printed by him at (1) The Times of India Suburban Press, Akurli Road, Western Express Highway, Kandivili (E), Mumbai 400 101. Tel. No. (022) 28872324, 28872930,Fax- (022) 28874230 (2) The Times of India Print City, Plot No. 4, T.T.C. Industrial Area, Thane Belapur Road, Airoli, Navi Mumbai-400708 and (3) TIMES PRESS, Plot No. 5A, Road No. 1, IDA Nacharam Ranga Reddy District, Hyderabad-500076. Editor: Ravi Balakrishnan(Responsible for selection of news under PRB Act). © All rights reserved. Reproduction in whole or in part without the written permission of the Publisher is prohibited.
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