REINFORCING WIDELY HELD PREJUDICES

The National Health Service does not fare any better. In their 2001 press advertising to recruit more healthcare staff they feature an Asian woman just recovering from a heart attack. A dangerous precept as it reinforces a widely held prejudice that sick Asians (and asylum seekers) are over-burdening Britain's free healthcare services. A fact that is untrue as noted in the recently published 'Jewels in the Crown' report. It suggests, contrarily, that Asians take up far less hospital treatment in comparison to their numbers in the population. Once again, perhaps the objective was to help Asian healthcare professionals identify with their patients, a sort "treating one of my own kind" syndrome. The problem is that for the remainder of the populace it again reinforces misleading stereotypes. Although the advert builds on the basic fact that Asians are more prone to Coronary Heart Disease, it coveys a confusing message between the image and the text.

THAT ISN'T WHAT I SAID!

Adverts convey messages through the visual means (the picture), the aural means (the voice in TV & radio ads) or the logical means (the text in press adverts). The creative process has to ensure that not only do each of these means reinforce the same message, but, that they do not convey contrasting messages. The NHS adverts do suggest two slightly differing messages: the image of Prabha (the Asian woman) suggests an ill Asian woman which can reinforce misguided racist views or simply say that "this advert is not for me" to a non-Asian; whereas the text is actually saying how grateful she is to the NHS staff, more of whom are required in the health service.

Advertising plays an important role in shaping our minds. Witness the enormous success of groundbreaking adverts like Guinness, Levi (flat Eric) and Budweiser, among others. Just as we need more Asian actors in our TV programmes, we need more Asians featured in advertising. Not just in numbers, but also in outlook and situations where their persona can be demonstrated in a positive light. This type of non-stereotypical advertising could go a long way towards overturning long-held prejudices among non-Asians. The problem is how to achieve the desired result.

RACE BANDWAGON

Telecommunications suppliers have, of late, also joined the race bandwagon. BT "Surf Together" adverts feature a teenage Asian girl so engrossed in her surfing that she fails to notice that her doting parents have repainted her room around her. A gross misjudgement as any Asian teenager will tell you. Far from repainting the room, the doting Asian papa and mama would ask the teenager to repaint her room and the whole house instead! Words like Asian "work ethic" and the ingrained "respect your elders" and "do what your parents tell you" philosophies come to mind.

The Siemens 'be inspired' adverts decided on a global approach. Their advert starts at a Cricket Match; features some funky Asian music and plenty of brown faces. Wonderful. Except for the fact that the adverts are being aired in the UK. Do UK Asians identify with their Asian cricketing counterparts given that many are second and third generation Britons? There is undoubtedly a strong link to cricket within the Asian community, but the juxtaposition of the sport with an Asian team seems a little alien for British Asians. Does this imply that all British Asians support their motherland team rather than England?

This advert would have been excellent if it could have tied in with the ICC Cricket World Cup 2003, but it was actually first aired in February 2001. At the simplest level it could merely be drawing attention to the fact that one can get and share cricket results via a mobile phone, in which case the use of brown faces could be deemed gratuitous. On the other hand, if it wanted to talk more to the Asian audience then it needs to consider more carefully how Asians use their mobile phones. "Sport is seen to be culturally acceptable on the basis of being community orientated, alcohol-free and single gender," David Fletcher notes in his research. The mistake Siemens have made in their UK execution is in placing the context of their advert outside Britain.

BOLLYWOOD BANDWAGON

"Youth culture and what is currently 'cool' are often a key tools in a creative director's armoury" says Hilary Thomson, former Creative Director at agency STH. "Research has shown that the UK Asian population is generally younger than National average. This factor combined with the visual appeal of Bollywood does create many possibilities for brands that want to adopt diversity and want to be seen as 'cool' at the same time. Bollywood is also a genre rather than an individual or cultural icon so you are less likely to offend anyone."

Recent adverts like the Tennent's lager 2003 Bollywood spoof, have chosen to emulate Hindi Cinema's penchant for story telling through song and dance. The advert, subtitled with a Scottish dialect, features a young Deepak Kumar who wants to marry a less than acceptable Laxmi Chowdhury. His family object until his father learns that Laxmi's family own the local Tennent's brewery and that if they marry he will have "quantities of Tennent's beyond his wildest dreams"! The film parodies Bollywood blockbuster 'Kabhi Khushi Kabhie Gham' with the strap line 'Jabhi Khushi Tabhi Tennent's' (whenever you're happy, there's Tennent's). Cleverly executed with a flowery Hindi dialogue distilled into witty Scottish subtitles this advert is likely to have broad appeal.

Other alcohol manufacturers have also travelled to India for inspiration. Carling's 2002 advert features an old Indian man levitating a woman with the power of his mind. His young pupil from London attempts the same but she does not move. Instead a young Indian barmaid with two pints of Carling is levitated up to the window behind him. The last scene shows guru and pupil enjoying a pint of Carling. Entitled 'uplifting' this type of tongue-in-cheek advertising is likely to appeal to Asians and non-Asians alike.

FROM THE EFFERVESCENT TO THE SUBLIME

Cobra Beer's 2003 adverts try to utilise all three aspects - youth culture, humour and India. The first execution features Ranjeet's Drive Through hairstyling salon where a young guy in the desert has a haircut whilst a line of people on elephants await their turn. The second advert features Ravi's organic carwash. An Indian man in India is driving in his car to meet his girlfriend. The windscreen gets splattered with mud so he uses the flowers he has bought for her to clean it. The girlfriend is not impressed and the guy goes to Ravi's organic car wash to have his car washed by elephants snorting water out of their trunks! The voice over, in an Indian accent, says "In India we are famed for being ingenious. Take our Cobra Beer, brewed for a full flavour with less gas". Although the strap line "ingenious because less gaseous" seems desperately trite, the adverts are a more sophisticated attempt to bridge the cultural divide.

Although the consumption of alcohol is banned in many Asian households, Fletcher notes that there is "implicit 'negotiation' between generations, together with an understanding that some behaviour (e.g. mixed gender socialising or consuming alcohol) is tolerated as long as it is not 'brought home' in discussion".

"I think the Asian population is sophisticated enough to enjoy the parodies in these beer commercials as mere entertainment without necessarily taking up the consumption of alcohol themselves", said one Asian observer, "I don't think that even seeing an Asian celebrity consume alcohol would make us take up drinking. Our cultural values are more ingrained than that".

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