History of Advertising in India

History of Advertising in India since 18th Century!

 

Indian Advertising starts with the hawkers calling out their wares right from the days when cities and markets first began.

 18th Century:

Concrete advertising history begins with classified advertising

 

Ads appear for the first time in print in Hickey’s Bengal Gazette, India’s first newspaper (weekly).

 

Studios mark the beginning of advertising created in India (as opposed to imported from England) Studios set up for bold type, ornate fonts, more fancy, larger ads

 

 

Newspaper studios train the first generation of visualisers & illustrators

 

Major advertisers: Retailers like Spencer’s, Army & Navy and Whiteaway & Laidlaw

 

Marketing promotions: Retailers’ catalogues provided early example

 

Ads appear in newspapers in the form of lists of the latest merchandise from England

 

 

Patent medicines: The first brand as we know them today were a category of advertisers

 

Horlicks becomes the first ‘malted milk’ to be patented on 5th June 1883 (No. 278967).

 

The 1900s:

1905 — В Dattaram & Co claims to be the oldest existing Indian agency in Girgaum in Bombay

 

 

1912 — ITC (then Imperial Tobacco Co. Ltd.) launches Gold Flake

 

1920s — Enter the first foreign owned ad agencies

 

— Gujarat Advertising and Indian Advertising set up

 

— Expatriate agencies emerge: Alliance Advertising, Tata Publicity

 

 

— LA Stronach’s merges into today’s Norvicson Advertising

 

— D J Keymer gives rise to Ogilvy & Mather and Clarion

 

1925 — LR Swami & Co, Madras

 

1926 — LA Stronach & Co (India) Pr. Ltd, Bombay starts Agency called National set up for American rather than British advertisers

 

— American importers hire Jagan Nath Jaini, then advertising manager of Civil and Military Gazette, Lahore. National today is still run by Jaini’s family

 

— Beginning of multinational agencies

 

— J Walter Thompson (JWT) opened to service General Motors business

 

1928 — BOMAS Ltd (Formerly DJ Keymer & Co Ltd) set up

 

1929 — J Walter Thompson Co Pr. Ltd formed

 

Indian agencies, foreign advertising in the thirties:

1931 — National Advertising Service Pr. Ltd. Bombay set up

 

— Universal Publicity Co, Calcutta formed

 

1935 — Indian Publicity Bureau Pr Ltd, Calcutta established

 

1936 — Krishna Publicity Co Pr. Ltd, Kanpur begins operations

 

— Studio Ratan Batra Pr. Ltd, Bombay established

 

 

— Indian Broadcasting Company becomes All India Radio (AIR)

 

1938 — Jayendra Publicity, Kolhapur started

 

1939 — Lever’s advertising department launches Dalda – the first major example of a brand and a marketing campaign specifically developed for India

 

— The Press Syndicate Ltd, Bombay set up

 

Indianising advertisements in the forties:

 

1940 — Navanitlai & Co., Ahmedabad set up

 

1941 — Lux signs Leela Chitnis as the first Indian film actress to endorse the product

 

Hindustan Thompson Associates (HTA), the current incarnation of JWT, coins the Balanced Nourishment concept to make Horlicks more relevant to India Green’s Advertising Service Agents, Bombay formed

 

1943 — Advertising & Sales Promotion Co (ASP), Calcutta established

 

1944 — Dazzal, Bombay comes into existence

 

— Ranjit Sales & Publicity Pr. Ltd, Bombay started

 

1945 — Efficient Publicities Pr. Ltd, Madras set up

 

— Tom & Bay (Advertising) Pr. Ltd., Poona begins operations in India

 

1946 — Eastern Psychograph Pr. Ltd., Bombay set up

 

— Everest Advertising Pr. Ltd, Bombay established

 

1947 — Grant Advertising Inc, Bombay formed

 

— Swami Advertising Bureau, Sholapur started

 

1948 — RC Advertising Co Bombay set up

 

— Phoenix Advertising Pr. Ltd, Calcutta formed

 

Corporate advertising in the fifties:

1950s — Radio Ceylon and Radio Goa become the media option

 

1951 — Vicks VapoRub-a rub for colds causes ripples with its entry in the balm market

 

1552 — Shantilal G Shah & Co, Bombay

 

1954 — Advertising Club, Mumbai set up

 

— Express Advertising Agency, Bombay

 

— India Publicity Co. Pr. Ltd., Calcutta

 

1956 — Aiyars Advertising & Marketing, Bombay

 

— Clarion Advertising Services Pr. Ltd, Calcutta

 

1957 — Vividh Bharati kicks off

 

1958 — Shree Advertising Agency, Bombay

 

1959 — Associated Publicity, Cuttack

 

Creative revolution in the sixties:

1960 — Advertising Accessories, Trichur started

 

— Marketing Advertising Associates, Bombay set up

 

1961 — Industrial Advertising Agency, Bombay comes into existence

 

— Bal Mundkur quits BOMAS to set up Ulka the same year

 

1962 — India’s television’s first soap opera – Teesra Rasta enthralls viewers

 

1963 — BOMAS changes names to SH Benson’s

 

— Stronach’s absorbed into Norvicson

 

— Lintas heading for uncertainty

 

— Levers toying with giving its brands to other agencies

 

— Nargis Wadia sets up Interpub

 

__ Wills Filter Tipped cigarettes launched and positioned as made for each other, filter and tobacco match

 

1965 ___ Kersey Katrak sets up Mass Communication and Marketing (MCM)

 

1966 — Government persuaded to op 1 up the broadcast media

 

__ Ayaz Peerbhoy sets up Marketing and Advertising Associates (MAA)

 

1%7 _ First commercial appears on Vividh Bharati

 

1968 — Nari Hira sets up Creative Unit

 

— India wins the bid for the Asian Advertising Congress

 

1969 — Sylvester daCunha left Stronach’s to run ASP; later sets up daCunha Associates

 

1970 — Frank Simoes sets up Frank Simoes Associates

 

The problematic seventies:

1970, 1978 National Readership Studies provided relevant data on consumers’ reading habits

 

1970 — Concept of commercial programming accepted by All India Radio

 

__ Hasan Rezavi gives the very first spot on Radio Ceylon

 

1971 — Benson’s undergo change in name to Ogilvy, Benson & Mather

 

1972 —- Western Outdoor Advertising Pvt. Ltd (WOAPL) introduces first closed circuit

 

TV (CCT) in the country at the race course in Mumbai

 

1973 — RK Swamy/BBDO established

 

1974 — MCM goes out of business Arun Nanda & Ajit Balakrishnan set up Rediffusion

 

1975 — Ravi Gupta sets up Trikaya Grey

 

1976 — Commercial Television initiated

 

1978 _ First television commercial seen

 

1979 — Ogilvy, Benson & Mather’s name changes to Ogilvy & Mather

 

Glued to the television in the eighties:

1980 — Mudra Communications Ltd set up King-sized Virginia filter cigarette enters market with brand name of ‘Charms’

 

1981 — Network, associate of UTV, pioneers cable television in India

 

1982 — The biggest milestone in television was the Asiad ’82 when television turned to colour transmission

 

— Bombay Dyeing becomes the first colour TV ad

 

— 13th Asian Advertising Congress in New Delhi Media planning gets a boost

 

1983 — Maggi Noodles launched to become an overnight success

 

— Canco Advertising Pvt. Ltd. founded

 

__ Manohar Shyam Joshi’s Hum Log makes commercial television come alive

 

— Mudra sponsors first commercial telecast of a major sporting event with the India-West Indies series

 

1084 — Hum Log, Doordarsharrs first soap opera in the colour era Is born

 

— Viewers still remember the sponsor (Vicco) of Yeh Jo Hai Zindagi!

 

1985 — Mudra makes India’s first telefilm, Janam

 

1985-86 — 915 new brands of products and services appearing on the Indian market

 

1986 — Sananda is born on July 31. The Bengali magazine stupefies India by selling 75,000 copies within three hours of appearing on the newsstands.

 

— Mudra Communications creates India’s first folk-history TV serial Buniyaad. Shown on DD, it becomes the first of the mega soaps

 

— Price quality positioning of Nirma detergent cakes boost sales

 

1988 — AAAI’s Premnarayan Award instituted

 

1989 — Advertising Club Bombay begins a biennial seminar called ‘Advertising that Works’

 

— Advertising & Marketing (A&M) magazine launched

 

Tech savvy in the nineties:

1990 — Marks the beginning of new medium Internet

 

— Agencies open new media shops; go virtual with websites and Internet advertising

 

— Brand Equity (magazine) of The Economic Times is born

 

1991 — First India-targetted satellite channel, Zee TV starts broadcast

 

— Close on the throes of the Gulf War enters STAR (Satellite Transmission for Asia Region)

 

1992 — Spectrum, publisher of A&M, constitutes its own award known as ‘A&M

 

Awards’

 

— Scribes and media planners credit The Bold And The Beautiful serial on STAR Plus channel as a soap that started the cultural invasion

 

1993 — India’s only advertising school, MICA (Mudra Institute of Communications

 

Ahmedabad), is born

 

— Tara on Zee TV becomes India’s first female-centric soap

 

1995 — Advertising Club of Bombay calls its awards as Abby

 

— Country’s first brand consulting firm, SABRE (Strategic Advantage for Brand Equity) begins operations

 

1996 — The ad fraternity hits big time for the first time by bagging three awards at the

 

43rd International Advertising Festival, Cannes Sun TV becomes the first regional TV channel to go live 24 hours

 

— A day on all days of the week

 

1997 — Media boom with the growth of cable and satellite; print medium sees an increase in titles, especially in specialised areas

 

— Government turns towards professional advertising in the private sector for its VDIS campaigns

 

— Army resorts to the services of private sector agencies

 

— Advertising on the Internet gains popularity

 

— Equitor Consulting becomes the only independent brand consultancy company in the country

 

— Several exercises in changing corporate identity

 

— For the first time ever, Indians stand the chance of winning the $ 1-miliion booty being offered by Gillette as part of its Football World Cup promo 1998

 

— Events assume important role in marketing mix

 

— Rise of software TV producers banking on ad industry talent

 

— Reinventing of cinema -advertising through cinema begins

 

1998 — Lintas becomes Ammirati Puri Lintas (APL)

 

1999 — B2B site agencyfaqs.com launched on September 28, 1999

 

— The Advertising Club Bombay announces the AdWorks Trophy

 

In the new millennium:

2000 — Mudra launches magindia.com – India’s first advertising and marketing gallery

 

— Lintas merges with Lowe Group to become Lowe Lintas and Partners (LLP)

 

— bigideasunlimited.com – a portal offering free and fee ideas for money launched by Alyque Padamsee and Sam Mathews

 

— Game shows like Kaun Banega Crorepati become a rage; media buying industry is bullish on KBC

 

— Kyunki Saas Bhi Kabhi Bahu Thi marks the return of family-oriented soap on TV

 

— French advertising major Publicis acquires Maadhyam

 

2001 — Trikaya Grey becomes Grey Worldwide

 

Bharti’s Rs 2.75-crore corporate TV commercial, where a baby girl is born in a

 

football stadium, becomes the most expensive campaign of the year

 

2002 — Lowe Lintas & Partners rechristened Lowe Worldwide

 

— For the first time in the history of HTA, a new post of president is created. Kamal Oberoi is appointed as the first president of HTA