Prasoon Joshi, National Creative Director, McCann Erickson India

First things first: what do we mean by 'masses'? Even if we take with a pinch of salt the 250 million Great Indian Middle Class theory that so adrenalises marketers, there is no denying that in India-with its one billion people-dialects, culture, and even cuisine change every 15-20 km. The challenge of Indian advertising is to search for that one thread of commonality made up of multiple fibres.

And, to 'connect' with the consumer, it is imperative that the cultural context be understood. Culture reflects the practices, rituals, taboos, and behavioural patterns passed down the generations. But equally, if not more, it is also shaped by external stimuli, media being one among many.

Media perspectives have oscillated between those emphasising the power of the message over its audience, and those stressing the barriers protecting the audience from the message's potential effects. One hears of the so-called 'hypodermic' model-in which media are seen to 'inject' audiences with messages that influence behaviour, often causing a breakdown of 'traditional values'. But while it's clear that media's social effects must be examined, it is equally clear that these are not all-powerful.

Some decades ago, Indian advertising catered mostly to a few Westernised Indians, and the print ads were inspired by Western styles. For the masses, the key medium was radio-true to the oral tradition of India. Mass India has always been a country of listeners, not readers. Even works of literature were passed on from generation to generation without written text. Who can forget that the great Indian poet Kabir's couplets were passed on by the sheer power of the spoken word?

However, much has changed. In recent years, TV has emerged as a powerful medium that doesn't just help talk to the masses but also visually captivate them. Meanwhile, the market's purchasing power has risen. The resultant change in communication was reflected by TV serials such as Hum Log ('We People'), which catered neither to the English-speaking minority nor to the vast majority of farmers. Instead, it brought to life characters next door, their family politics, dreams and aspirations. While mass cinema always had the licence of fantasy, it was TV that mirrored people's lives. If cinema was like someone met at a party, TV was like someone coming home.

When Indian advertising took to TV, there were no Western reference points. The Volkswagen and Hamlet Cigars sort of commercials were too far from local sensibilities to be emulated. So, like cinema, we had to evolve our own code, creating mass characters like Lalitaji. Slowly, the depiction of festivals and families went up. But barring some examples, advertising per se became more aspiration-driven.

Yet, all advertising need not be aspirational. In fact, advertisers need to recognise the power of mass market individualism. Today, there's a growing comfort with one's own individuality, the self-confident feeling that 'this is the way I am'.

The old platform of '500,000 logon ki pasand' ('preference of half a million') is no longer relevant. Numbers tend to put people off. And the classic proposition of 'Mrs Bhalla of Chandigarh and Mrs Das of Kolkata and Mrs Rane of Nasik are buying product X, and so must you', is dying too.

However, this is not about being rebellious either. The Indian consumer is in a cusp-like state. If we extend Hegel's theory to this state, it is not about "if their way of living is right, my way of living is wrong", or vice versa. It's not about antithesis, but more about synthesis.

The 'what do we say' in advertising will always be relevant, but 'how to say it' is increasingly getting important. Witness the decline in 'overt selling'. Instead of the old 'use this product and become a superhero' sort of overkill, advertisers are using far more subtlety in portraying the product's role in the consumer's life. This is perhaps why the 'before and after' format is fading out.

The role of advertising is not just to reflect change, but to anticipate and give it a platform. It must, thus, catch a need in its nascency

Or take 'in film' advertising. The challenge is to avoid being caught out as an 'ad'. Take also the use of celebrities in public service advertising. Often I've heard people say "khud toh kuchh karte nahi, humse keh rahein hai yeh karo" ('they don't do anything themselves, but ask us to do this or that'). People wonder how genuine the message is.

The need of the hour, then, is to strike that balance between product message and genuine delivery. Consumer bonds may depend on many variables, but advertising cannot do without fresher and fresher ideas all the time to surprise, engage, and sustain interest.

It's a tricky scenario, though. One must stick to the brand's core, and alter just the peripheral stuff.

Layered communication happens when the central message is more than obvious, but along with it are subtleties that can be deciphered on repeat experience. Advertising, after all, is a coded message transmitted through media and decoded in the target consumer's mind. Echoing the premise of Hau's coding and decoding model, the same event can be encoded in more than one way, and the message in itself is 'polysemic'-capable, in principle, of several interpretations.

So it's not just what the messages say, but also the seemingly small things-such as colours, designs, and symbols-that influence the audience at large. This explains the need for qualitative consumer research, the techniques of which have evolved to draw inferences from things rather than words, for example. Subliminal signals such as body language and eye movements are under study nowadays to peel the layers of consumer understanding. The consumer, at best, can only offer 'indications' of the inner person. Much like the Hindi film song 'ek ladki ko dekha toh aisa laga' ('saw a girl and felt so...'), with the singer trying to touch upon what he felt, but not being able to express the 'exact' feeling. The consumer doesn't always articulate a need. It's our job to uncover it.

Advertising, some feel, 'mirrors' change. I disagree. I feel that it 'pre-empts' change. The role of advertising is not just to reflect change, but to anticipate and give it a platform. It must, thus, catch a need in its nascency.

Take, for example, the household need for a second TV. One may have felt the need to watch one's own shows. But there was reluctance to voice it-mainly because of the fear of creating family distances. Advertising can help. By understanding the dilemma, empathising with the feeling, and showing how it could actually benefit the entire family.

Does advertising create new needs where none exist? I don't think so. But yes, it can nurture that seed of a need that already exists. That is where insights come into the picture.

As I mentioned, most Indian consumers are in a cusp-like frame of mind. The consumer is not averse to change, but is negotiating traditions. It is still not easy, for example, to sell a product to the Indian housewife on pure convenience, even though she may desire precisely that. It has to be packaged in selfless justifications like 'it leaves you to do more with your children...'

Insights such as these are crucial to advertising success. As also the recognition of the mass market's heterogeneity. One has to slice the audience not just on economic parameters, but on lifestyle, value system, culture, and tradition.

After all, Indian tradition is still to be reconciled with the culture of consumption. And if advertising is to maximise impact, it must be able to give the product the desired associations within the relevant cultural context.