Fodder for unbridled consumerism. Fuel for the market driven economy. White goods. Brown goods. Goods sold relatively quickly at a lower cost. But high volumes. Cumulatively earning enormous profits. These days scrapping at the bottom of the pyramid. With the guise of benefitting the poor and development, of course. And providing employment to ex-wannabi investment bankers who in B-school interviews suddenly realize the value of "being in touch with the markets" in a downturn. Call them what you may. My reference is to a set of firms comprising the ISEC classification of Fast Moving Consumer Goods. Most of them have been fleecing people for donkey decades and now wear their age as proud shoulder badges. Most have enormously presumptious corporate vision statements which go like:
a) ".....we help people feel good, look good, and get more out of life."
b) "our brands are platforms for innovation, enabling us to better the lives of consumers"
c) "we put india first"
Nothing less than a focus on development, betterment of life of the teeming masses, contribution to a country's growth and foreign policies would have perhaps sufficed the megalomania of people who approved of these statements. All of this of course to be achieved through a faster and more efficient way of selling more and more soaps, detergents, cigarettes, carbonated water, and crunchy oil inside plastic packs marked "recyclable" at increasingly higher prices to people who had no need for them in the first place.
Come to think of it, its perhaps natural for the learned individuals sitting at the board of these firms to cave into such ludicrous thoughts. Many decades ago, as fresh graduates from the nations best colleges and institutions when possibilities were endless for them, they choose to earn pots of monies by selling more and more tins of lard and beauty creams. Along with it came residential bugalows next to the sea and membership to clubs which till some years back were the exclusive domain of goras. Life was easy, and work was challenging. It couldnot have been easy to create a "quality of life" by building a market for fairness creams in himachal pradesh or compete for selling more and more hair gel in coconut infested konkan. But somewhere they realized folks whom they considered to be second-rate and who ended up in lesser lucrative professions like the administrative services were suddenly much more influential than they were. Of course there was nothing to be done now but smart under the wrong choices made earlier and bide one's time in a socialist state hoping for things to change. And change they did, when the country nearly went bankrupt and had to throw open its market and remove restrictions from existing corporates. Suddenly the scope of work was boundless. One could not only sell more and tins of lard in more and more markets, but also harbour ambitions of "nurturing life and vitality" of consumers while doing so. And that is how, i believe these corporate vision statements came into being.
Which brings me to my main chain of thoughts around what made me write this vituperative blog in the first place. Blatantly wrong advertisements used by FMCG firms in selling their goods. Increasingly, more and more of these are beginning to resemble shrill, third rate con-jobs of the type used by selling home shopping goods and is being done in an unapologetic manner. At random I just wanted to pick up a few and highlight the chicanery, speciousness, and pure hogwash behind their arguments presented:
a) Product: Fairness creams
Company: HUL (every other FMCG firm carries an honourable mention, but this one
in particular ad bakes the cake and eats it too)
Tagline: Ayurwed Ke Shakti
Everyone deserves to look good. But the convincing argument against fairness creams has always been that they try and change what "looking good" means by pushing through stereotypes which suit their product capabilities. In these ads, models are consistently shown being completely transformed just by the consistent purchase and application of creams. This transformation is then directly linked to the success and failure of that individual in life. Not only are these ads amazingly misleading they also cause harm to individuals and the larger society by making people falsely believe that such a change in possible in every case and is completely in their hands.
b) Product: Granier Fructis Hairfall Defense
Company: L' OReal
Tagline: 5X less hairfall!!
No one really knows if they mean to say that "Using Granier Fructis Hairfall Defense leads to 1/5 the volume of existing levels of hairfall" but everyone assumes it to be so. Look closely, "X" can logically mean anything. Also, assuming that's what they mean to convey, it still is an incredibly convulated way of presenting your statistics, isnt it? Fishy.
c) Product: Horlicks
Company: GSK
Tagline: Drinking Horliks makes children "Taller, Stronger, and Sharper".
The advert in focus has been banned by the standards agency in the UK and is currently only being played out in 3'rd world markets. Looking disinterestedly at the claim and disregarding the fact that it is aimed at its competitor, how can any ad. claim to change the physical attributes of a human being? This is just as bad as ads for those height increasing and muscle building tablets. All the more dangerous given the fact that its aimed at children and gullible parents.
As per a dated statistic, of the largest 100 economies on earth, 51 are corporations. Amongst these, consumer good firms are perhaps some of the most efficient as well as respected of organizations around. Out of the examples quoted, some are of corporations in India which have set best practises in corporate management for decades. It would then therefore be interesting to understand the kind of pressures which can make these firms stoop to such levels.
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