Category: Media

Time limitation : Magazine ads appear after an interval of time. Their production too takes time. Revision and amendments are difficult. There is wastage of art work already done. As the lead time is long, once the advertiser misses a deadline, he has to wait for a long time before the ad appears.

Inability to localise : Manufacturers in the small ind medium sectors whose distribution is restricted to a limited geographical territory find magazine ads unprofitable. Magazine ads are useful for large manufacturers and advertisers catering to the national market.

No mass reach : They lack the mass reach of the dailies. They are not the main reach builders in any campaign.

Slow burn : Dailies build reach quickly. Magazines are slow-burn. They build reach slowly. They are not useful for launches, contests and promotions.

Selectivity : The reading habits of the audience make advertising targeting possible.

Supplementary medium : Magazines are found to be a good supplement to television. They reach special interest groups that cannot be targeted well with television. They provide more information to those consumers whose initial interest has been generated by the television.

Editorial environment : The editorial environment enhances the effectiveness of the ad.

Engaging medium : Magazines are pricey. They are read by a loyal subscriber group carefully. The noticeability of the ads thus improve.

Long shelf-life : Most magazines are not read in one single sitting. They are picked up and read several times till the new issue arrives. Many times an old issue is kept after the new issue has come Advertisements in magazines receive full attention of the readers.

High fidelity reproduction : Magazine ads are good in quality in terms of printing and colour. The paper used also adds to the quality.There is excellent reproduction of art and colour work.

Magazines could be weeklies, fortnightlies or monthlies. Next to newspapers, this is the second print medium available to the advertisers.In many respects, magazines differ from the newspapers. The newspapers appeal to all kinds of people. The magazines appeal to particular kind of people. Newspaper ads have a short life, magazines have a longer shelf life. Newspapers are basically a local medium, whereas magazines could be national medium. There are regional editions of national magazines in the local languages. Newspapers  attract readers in general. Magazines attract readers with a specific interest, e.g. women’s magazines provide useful information  on housekeeping, gardening, embroidery and cooking. Sports lovers read Sports Week and auto lovers Auto Ride. Magazines help people to relax, and escape from the drudgery of everyday life. They impart considerable knowledge on different subjects. Magazine readership, overall, is not growing, but the launch of special interest magazines continue unabated.

Magazines could be in different sizes — pocket book size, full size or standard size, flat size and large size. Magazines could be classified on the basis of readership  — business magazines, sports magazines, women’s magazines etc. Generally, they are either general interest or special interest magazines. There are also professional magazines for medicos, pharmacists, architects, chartered accountants. There are institutional magazines  such as a magazine published by the Institute of Costs and Works Accountants of India (ICWAI). There are house magazines of different business and service organisations, e. g. Kshema of Corporation Bank. Magazines could be information providers or leisure reading material.

Durability : Newspaper ads have a short life span of a day. They are thrown away as soon as they are read.

Local : Newspaper ads are local in nature. This is an advantage as well as a limitation.

Reproduction : Newspapers are printed on newsprint. The finer details in photographs may not be reproduced faithfully. Newspaper ads cannot compare in terms of quality with the ads in magazines. This deficiency is compensated by colour supplements given as add-ons.

Position : Newspaper ads in not-so-preferred positions are likely to g0 unnoticed. Preferred positions atract a higher tariff. Most ads are accepted on ROP or run-of-paper basis giving freedom to the newspers to place the ad anywhere at its discretion.

Not leisure/pleasure medium : Newspapers are not a leisure and pleasure medium. They are read in a hurry. Many skip over the ads.

Selectivity : Newspapers are not demographically selective.

Local advertising : Local advertising is in fact possible only in newspapers. Barring a few national advertisements, newspapers contain mostly local advertising.

Time Flexibility : Newspaper ads can be inserted at the last minute to take advantage of some special marketing situation.

Reach : Newspapers have a wide reach. It reflects the strength of the press.

Family medium : Newspapers are read by the whole family. They are suitable for messages for all age groups.

Testing easier : It is easier to test the newspaper ads.

Choices : They offer a wide variety of sizes and positions.

Medium of Choice : As a result of fragmentation of the TV medium, we see a rennaisance in print advertising. Print seems to be the only way to acquire a presence for the brand today.

Selectivity : Print has geographic selectivity.

Editorial environment : The editorial matter can be used strategically to place the ads. Newspapers are bought to read the editorial matter. The stronger the editorial environment, the better it is for the ad messages.

Advertising in newspapers continue to reign supreme in India despite all the odds. Nespapers have geographic selectivity. Though FMCG are yet to embrace print wholeheartedly, it is mainly durables who rely on print. Nespapers are used in combination with other media to get the multiplier effect. There are several types of newspapers — daily, weekly, morning/evening etc. They could be national, regional or local nespapers. This is advantageous to deliver the advertising message to a select geographical audience. In India, there is English press and vernacular press. Newspapers in vernacular language help the advertiser to reach the reader of that language. English print, which has only a 10 per cent share of readership, attracts large advertising chunk especially for SEC-focussed products.Newspapers differ in sizes too — they could be broadsheets or tabloids. A standard broadsheet has about 8 columns, each approximately two inches wide and 22 inches deep. The tabloids or tabs are appoximately half the size of the standard broadsheet. They have 5 columns and are 14 inches deep.

Understanding Media written by Marshall McLuhan puts media into two categories  — hot media and cold media. By hot he means media that engages the audience. Those media which keeps the audience passive is called cold. Radio has classified as hot in his book. TV has been put in the cold category. These definitions should be revisited in view of the emergence of the new media — the social media.

Lavani

It dates back to the 16th century. It is a folk dance native to Maharashtra, Karnataka and Madhya Pradesh. Surprisingly, its origin lies in Kathak. Traditionally, it employed all the nine ras. However, in the 18th century it was dominated by sringar, virah and anand ras. Its core has become erotica. The emerging middle-class did not accept it fully in the last century.

The lavani performance is not conducive to safety. The stage is often set under a canopy. The audience is not always well-behaved.

Nautanki

To begin with, there was ras-bhagat tradition which recited the lives of gods. In the 19th century, Nawab Wajid Ali Shah, Awadh initiated rahas with famous Inder Sabha enactment in 1851. Awadh later became a centre for popular commercial called Nautanki. It was later patronised by akharas. Khoone Nahak depicted Jallianwalla Bagh massacre in 1920. Zulmi Dyer apperared in 1922. A standard format of Nautanki evolved —

• a prayer sung by the cast
• sutradhar (narrator) introduces the theme briefly
• narrator stood at all four corners of the stage so that nobody  misses the essentials of the play
• intervals with a joker
• music in-between
• play

The villages provided audiences for nautanki. The travelling troupes visited villages.It had the energy, audacity and speed. By the late 19th century, Kanpur emerged as the main centre for nautanki. The industrial workers constituted the audience. The musicals were becoming melodramatic and raunchy. Most nautanki women belonged to courtesan communities such as Kalbeliyas, Bedias and Nats. In Independent India, though nautanki initially slowed down, its music migrated to Hindi film industry, e.g. Mohey Panghat Pey  in Mughal-e- Azam. Gulab Theatre has emerged as an authentic nautanki company. Ranjit Kapur, Annu Kapoor and Raghubir Yadav are products of nautanki. They strayed into cinema.

Nautanki is an operatic tradition, combining humour, farce and melodrama. They sing everything, including the dialogues. Originally, the show would last 10-12 hours across North India. Nautanki obeys the demands of the audience. Artists must have a strong voice and be fearless in approach. Hindi films have dance and song sequence. Its roots can be traced to this form. Salman’s Dhink chika or Bipasha’s Beedi jalaile reflect the obvious influences of nautanki.

Mujra

The tawaifs  practised mujra. Once they were considered the keepers of culture and high etiquette. They flourished under the patronage of the Mughal empire. Mujra reached its peak in the 17th century. Artists doing mujra were court entertainers in North India. They did a lot of riyaz. The knowledge of Urdu was essential. It was expected that they appreciate the works of Ghalib and Rumi. Later the coutesans were relegated to the kothas. The downfall began with the dissipation of royalty under British rule, and the eradication of the zamindari system. The middle-class equated the artists with prostitutes. Hindi films portray the mahaul of the mujra world of yester years — those huge spaces, those chandeliers, expensive dresses, the jewellery.

One assumption is that media is a stabilising force, which maintains consensus in the society and strengthens it . It assigns a role or function to media and is a ‘functionalist’ school. Here the interplay of power and conflict in the society has been ignored. The assumption is that all the forces in society compete with each other and there is free and fair play, with each group getting an equal opportunity to dominate and control. Another school of thought assumes power struggle as the pivot around which the social classes — groups revolve. Mass media may be used by the powerful as a vehicle to propagate its ideology. This is the critical school. It examines media experience in cultural and political context, media’s economics and owenership and media consumption habits.

Media effects theories have a continuum, the one extreme which puts media in all-powerful position and the other in no-effects at all position. In between, there are people who suggest that effects are negotiated by the audiences. Media effects are in fact effects of the contents on the opinions, perceptions, attitudes, beliefs and behaviour. There is research on the effects of the audio-visual media like TV and films, e.g. research on the effects of TV programmes on children. The research is mostly based pre-test and post-test methods. They could be on expected lines. The social context of media consumption was ignored.

Gana pattu is the folk song of urban dweller in Tamil Nadu — irreverent and lower class. Kolaveri di is an example of Gana pattu becoming mainstream, though in the process diluting its spirit to fit the mainstream. It is a subaltern genre that thrives in mid-1900s in harbour and its surroundings of central Chennai. It is without any inhibitions –from floating faeces to pretty woman. It is a gestalt of sweat and struggle, grass and booze, shit on the sheet and the posterier of the neighbour’s wife. It is the poetry of the streets. It could be compared to hip-hop — the songs of African-Americans. These conveyed their anger against injustice, and later became mainstream.