New Delhi: The year was 1999. The turn of the century saw the Y2K scare dominate the world, The Matrix vs Star Wars battle, and the Backstreet Boys enter the international music scene.
Closer to home, the Indian TV viewer had finally arrived, wielding a remote and cutting through the vast channel clutter. TV advertising spending reportedly increased by more than 30 per cent that year, after being caught in a recessionary spiral for the past few years.
Amid Hum Paanch, Shaktimaan, CID, and the live broadcast of cricket matches, the viewer was introduced to an ad on TV whose tagline would later go on to be one of the most iconic — ‘Men will be men.’
A surrogate ad for Pernod Ricard’s signature whiskey was launched in the Indian market in 1997. The ads for Imperial Blue were based on the premise of a modern Indian male’s attempt to overcome his weakness for all things feminine in order to win over the attention of the opposite sex and his fellow males.
Talking to ThePrint, Ritu Sharda, Chief Creative Officer, Ogilvy North and Nitin Srivastava, Executive Creative Director & Head of Design- Ogilvy North said that iOgilvy and Pernod Ricard partnership dates back to 1996. “It all started with Ogilvy winning Seagram’s Royal Stag account. Imperial Blue was first heard in the creative corridors of Ogilvy in 1997 and that is when the tagline we see today – Men will be Men, was first spoken too. It was under the guidance of Piyush Pandey that a team from Ogilvy cracked this idea.”
Talking about the idea behind the tagline, they added, “The whisky market was, and is, predominantly male oriented. Back then, perceptibly more so. Men, success and unwind formed the three major buckets in any whisky brand’s word cloud operating in the lower segment of the whisky ladder. Alcohol advertising in India was also moving to surrogate advertising after the government’s 1995 ruling. Imperial Blue’s positioning at the time was clear. It was a drink for a Man to unwind and unburden himself after a hard day at work. A positioning statement was needed that would trap the word cloud and bring out the product promise in a creative, non-product (read surrogate) way.‘Men will be men’ sounded like a perfect respite for the man who wanted to be his real self at the end of the day. Combined with a communication that would help him forget his daily grind just like the drink he sipped.”
Laced with humour and irony, the ads quickly went on to gain immense popularity with the distinct jingle of a two-line ghazal: pyaar ki raah mein, chalna hai seekh, ishq ki chah me jalna seekh.
Talking about the jingle, the Ogilvy team added that the ads did not have a signature soundtrack till the “Rose Darling” TVC, created by Piyush Pandey and executed by Prasoon Pandey. It was this commercial that catapulted Imperial Blue ads to fame.
“The Ghazal became so famous with consumers that they said that even watching the ad would transport them to a mehfi llike atmosphere they were used to during their drinking sessions. The Ghazal, thus, became, the mainstay and one of the most recognised tunes in advertising, they said.
The new Ghazal was written by Team Ogilvy in 2010 for the famous “Anniversary” ad which was shot by Vinil Mathew. The Ghazal was composed by Amar Mangurkar, ThePrint was told.
Over the decades, the ads have seen their share of both success and criticism. The advertisements have shown men tucking in their stomachs when in front of a woman in an elevator, a man pretending to enjoy classical ghazals while accompanied by a woman, and a man buying a diamond ring to compensate for forgetting their anniversary, among many others.
Talking to ThePrint, the Ogilvy team said that “The best of the Imperial Blue ads have been the simplest. One that show a moment in the life of a Man. Once it’s out in the public then it is theirs to love, hate, ridicule. Our objective always remains to stay true to the positioning of the brand and hit the Ogilvy benchmark year-on-year. Of course, being sensitive to the prevailing societal trends is a responsibility of any creative. The fact that Imperial Blue ads have been loved universally and by both genders, speaks a lot not only about their popularity but also their acceptability. It is the most looked forward to campaign in Indian advertising and a “guaranteed” viral.”
Over the years, the team added that many things have changed. The duration of the ads were brought down to 20 seconds from a 30 or even a 45 in 2013, which used to be a luxury, to increase frequency of ads.
“To paraphrase – cometh the hour, cometh the Men will be Men. This challenge only made the creative team conjure even more magical stuff. To come up with a different angle every time is extremely difficult. Just imagine the scores of scripts that did not make it to the final execution. There are some real gems hidden there”, the team adds, speaking to ThePrint.
Also read: How marketing ‘comfort for the common man’ made Rupa standout in India’s innerwear market
Where do you draw the line?
The ads have seen much debate over the depiction of gender stereotypes and blatant promotion of a misogynistic idea of women.
24-year-old Ashutosh from Mumbai remembered his MBA classes, where during a gender sensitisation course, a video on sexual harassment at the workplace depicting a middle-aged man harassing a woman in the elevator was played and the students reacted by unanimously singing the Imperial Blue jingle.
“The ads have normalised stalking, eve-teasing, and even sexual harassment with such usage of background music,” he told ThePrint.
Anwiti Singh (29), a journalist based in Delhi, echoes the same thoughts. “I was younger when the ads came out but I remember wondering, why is the woman in the elevator smiling as if she knows the men have vile thoughts going on in their heads?”
Shreyasi Ganguly, an HR professional based in Bangalore, adds, “It makes no sense and has zero relevance to the product. (It) makes the opposite gender feel inferior.”
For others, the ads merely highlight the social conditioning of a patriarchal society.
For 30-year-old Puja Sengupta, an HR professional from Mumbai, “the ads call out things that are normalised in society.” Speaking to ThePrint, she said, “I haven’t felt angry or repulsive despite the fact that these things are so normalised in our society… I think the (Imperial Blue) ads try to tap into the idea of society normalising sexism/chauvinism while nobody bats an eye.”
Abhishek (24), a researcher based in Ahmedabad, holds similar views. “The ads were relatable, perhaps not in the scale of richness and style but surely on how conscious men get around women, especially our body postures. Our gestures do change even when they are not looking.”
He’s not the only one. Many believe that while they went from finding the ads funny to objectionable, they did give their target audience scenarios that were everyday scenes and were relatable.
Catering to gender stereotypes
While the ads have been funny and innovative over the years, 30-year-old Zeba Zoariah Ahsan from Delhi found most of the ads “typically centred around the male gaze with a few ounces of chivalry here and there.” She added that in some of these ads, buying expensive diamonds for their partners could be understood as buying guilt. “There is a silent brocode between men that viewers find amusing and seems to strike a chord with them, as well,” Ahsan told ThePrint.
The ads come out every year, and last year, Seagram’s Imperial Blue Packaged Drinking Water along with Wavemaker India and Colors TV launched a New Year’s campaign using AI to leave personalised messages.
Heartbeat, their 2020 film, garnered 20 million views on YouTube. The ad shows an unconscious man with an increased heartbeat when the lady doctor comes to check on him. “The ads assume that all men are heterosexual, sexual, and misogynists. It states that men will be men in a way that all men behave problematically. So why do men get offended when women say they were harrassed and respond with a #NotAllMen?” asks Anwiti.
When asked what the team thinks they said, “What’s wrong is wrong. No one can promote or support anything that is blatantly offensive. But one should also acknowledge that we live in an “era of outrage”. Everything that is posted out there is fuel for someone to outrage on. Sometimes, we as a society, forget to laugh a little and sometimes lean towards confusing the harmless with the harmful because the negative voice draws a larger reception than the positive”.
Also read: ‘Pitaji ki patloon’ to ‘uncle ji ki kursi’ — Cadbury 5 Star hit the spot with Ramesh-Suresh duo