Mother Not Superior

The Indian mommy can’t sell chocolate or fashion or a scooter — even the one for “girls”. She doesn’t decide which car to buy. She occasionally taps into a computer (probably mommy-blogging), “multi-tasking” by rocking her baby’s cradle, Good Housekeeping by her side. Johnson & Johnson, a brand talking directly at mommies, has Dr Mom come home from work and go straight into baby’s bathtime. No more tears. Mommy is here. At your service. Permanently.

Advertising’s Indian mother is the glorious epitome of selfless ideals transplanted almost directly from old Bollywood films. It’s a cultural ethos even a relatively new brand like Haier (10 years in India) relies on, with commercials featuring the mother/wife who spends her day shadowing her son and husband. Don’t miss her single-minded focus on getting her husband that cool glass of water from the new fridge whose freezer is presumably packed with her ambition, sex appeal, fiestiness and humour.

If that’s not dire enough, the sisterhood and community often fails the Indian mommy as well. Usually in competition with other mothers, when a friend does show up, mom gets schooled about calcium (Bournvita) or gets into a biryani-pakoda stand-off with her daughter-in-law over her new-fangled hob. She’s even bested by the new Masala Maggi — now complete with the vegetables she used to be in charge of nutritionally upgrading!

Fellow mommies, we must ask: is this happening to us? What came first, the expectations or the super-mom? Are these advertisements a factual representation of motherhood or do we need someone to tag the ads with a “Performed by Stunt Mommies. Do Not Try This At Home!”

If advertising reflects society’s mores, then the Indian mommy is making do with less. Vodafone’s “widest reach” ad features a man harangued by his mother who manages to get her son’s phone to ring across all sorts of wildernesses. She has no life except to buzz within a tight domestic orbit, waiting for someone, anyone, to present her with the eureka moment where she goes “accha?” and her family’s life is instantly enhanced!

But it is not just short-sightedness that keeps mommy so bleh. Role stereotyping is a bogeyman that has been impossible to put to bed since the 1970s. Suman Srivastava, advertising guru, Marketing Unplugged, agrees that while “advertising loves safe caricatures” it is a democratic stereotyping that includes, “the man who can’t make a cup of tea, the garrulous mother-in-law or the over-excited young adult leaping into the air (for) anything from a soft drink to mutual funds.”

With 60 seconds or less to tell a story and sell a brand, the easily recognisable cliché sets the tone, speeds up the narrative. “In the late 1980s, we had one TV channel and had to run the one film that had to appeal across the country.

Like Hindi films of that era, you aimed for the lowest common denominator. That mostly meant a woman wearing a sari, a mangalsutra (locket hidden under her pallu, a telltale of the state she belongs to), who woke up early, got dressed with full make-up and then went to wake up her husband with a cup of tea,” says Srivastava.

Advertising historians will remember Lalitaji, the no-nonsense home-maker invented in the 1980s to justify Surf’s premium pricing. With her wagging finger on the pulse of the middle-class mommy’s wrist, she broadcast her decision not to compromise quality at the altar of thrift. A gutsy, outspoken Indian housewife — she is often seen as part of the evolution in advertising, when, actually, she was just a blip.

Today, the modern representation of mother as multi-tasking facilitator of schedules, nutritional expert and general wind-beneath-our-wings-woman is as caricatured and stilted as the ubiquitous shy ’80s housewife (in the Colgate ad) unable even to tell her husband “inki saas mein badboo hai”.

If, anecdotally, it appears that clichéd representations of women in advertising don’t adversely affect brand-image, it is because only a minority may see those representations as objectionable in the first place.

Advertising agencies are quick to point out that the campaigns are not designed in isolation. The “pain points” of the commercials stem from months of market research. “The research is not subjective. The questions are personal and are based around the product/service at hand. The findings are usually quite diverse and represent every section of the society from different parts of the nation. Within this data, some universal truths are pulled out,” says Ishanee Sarkar of DRAFTFCB+ULKA. “The fact that the Indian mother in advertising has maintained a status quo over the years is not something advertising has perpetuated. Most brands are not trying to be regressive in their portrayal of mothers but instead, try to show that they understand how important a child is — which leads to building faith in the brand itself,” she adds.

So chew on the fact that Mrs Average Mommy probably loves that Oreo ad where the little girl is demurely adjusting her dupatta, setting up a snack for daddy. An urban mom of two girls, who prefers not to be named, says, “Most ads seem to talk past me, at someone else. Frankly, if I came back from work and my daughter was that demure with me, I’d be aghast. ” It’s not an easy chasm to straddle.

But eventually, the social evolution will have to be televised. As advertising moves from the broadcast of national television and print into the more honed, specific directions of online and niche channels, brands and their agencies will have to pay more attention to rural/urban, parochial/cosmopolitan and other sub-categorisations.

It is already happening, says Srivastava. “Fragmented media and fragmented brands have naturally led to more nuanced portrayals of women. There are some striking examples where stereotypes have been broken and progress made,” he says.

Much deserved kudos has been accorded to Tanishq and its heart-warming story of new love and second chances. Amul has, since the Eighties, often shown Papa making the odd sandwich. “The Dabur Chyawanprash mum isn’t over protective, nor is the Lifebuoy mum. And now Bournvita, which to my mind is an excellent example,” says Srivastava.

Bournvita’s Tayaari Jeet Ki is a great example of evolution made especially significant by its heritage brand status.

Pleasantly ambiguous about the mum’s marital status, it purposefully destroys a gender-stereotype (the little girl is a boxer) and is big on the emotional gravitas of the Strength-of-a-Mother. With the courage to immediately outdate its own ‘Badhaye doodh ki shakti’, it promotes Mommy up to Mentor, Trainer… But mom is still In the Service Of…

Still, mommies are best used to babysteps if nothing else, and change is afoot. Srivastava is confident that “fragmentation of media is an enabler. The more niche the reach, the more authentic you can be. (We) should see a lot more realistic portrayals of women as soon as the online advertising world gets over its obsession with ‘rational’ messages.”

In the meanwhile, the Indian mummy stands sweating over the generic cultural cauldron wondering if she should buy some Knorr flavour-blends and get “Restaurant Khaana” at home. Another job done by SuperMum!

Genesia Alves is a writer who has worked across radio, television and print.