The Emergence of Brand-Name Capitalism in Late Colonial India: Advertising and the Making of Modern Conjugality (Critical Perspectives in South Asian History)

This book examines the emergence of professional advertising in western India during the interwar period. It explores the ways in which global manufacturers advanced a 'brand-name capitalism' among the Indian middle class by promoting the sale of global commodities during the 1920s and 1930s, a time when advertising was first introduced in India as a profession and underwent critical transformations. Analysing the cultural strategies, both verbal and visual, used by foreign businesses in their advertisements to capture urban consumers, Haynes argues that the promoters of various commodities crystalized their campaigns around principles of modern conjugality. He also highlights the limitations of brand-name capitalism during this period, examining both its inability to cultivate markets in the countryside or among the urban poor, and its failure to secure middle-class customers. With numerous examples of illustrated advertisements taken from Indian newspapers, the book discusses campaigns for male sex tonics and women's medicines, hot drinks such as Ovaltine and Horlicks, soaps such as Lifebuoy, Lux and Sunlight, cooking mediums such as Dalda and electrical household technologies. By examining the formation of 'brand-name capitalism' and two key structures that accompanied it- the advertising agency and the field of professional advertising- this book sheds new light on the global consumer economy in interwar India, and places developments in South Asia into a larger global history of consumer capitalism. Cover Halftitle page Series page Title page Copyright page Dedication Contents Illustrations Preface and Acknowledgments Abbreviations Introduction Historiography of advertising Methodological considerations Organization of the book 1 Brand-Name Capitalism and Professional Advertising in India1 The emergence of brand-name capitalism in western India The globalization of professional advertising The emergence of professional advertising in India Advertising agencies and the construction of cultural knowledge Commercial ethnology and advertising practice Conclusion 2 Consumers: European Expatriates and the Indian Middle Class Part 1: The Europeans European society and consumption Part 2: The Middle Class Conjugality and the construction of the middle class The middle-class family and consumption Part 3: The Rural Population and the Urban Poor Conclusion 3 Tonics and the Marketing of Conjugal Masculinity Tonics Vernacular tonic advertisements Global firms and tonic advertisements Sex tonics and a “happy married life” Horlicks, male weakness and the office Conclusion 4 Advertising and the Female Consumer: Feluna, Ovaltine, and Beauty Soaps1 The event of woman in twentieth-century western India Feluna, “the female constitution,” and conjugality Ovaltine and the middle-class housewife Lux, Pears and the construction of modern beauty Conclusion 5 Lever Brothers, Soap Advertising, and the Family Soap and the middle-class family Soap advertising during the 1920s The soap wars of the early 1930s The Unilever response The campaign for Lifebuoy soap Sunlight soap Conclusion 6 The Invention of a Cooking Medium: Cocogem and Dalda1 Food, consumers and the bazaar Cocogem The campaign for Dalda Conclusion 7 Electrical Household Technologies: Fracturing the Ideal Home Electricity and the ideal home The realities of middle-class housing The commercial rationale of advertising The pedagogies of electricity Conclusion Conclusion: Interwar Advertising and India’s Contemporary Globalization Notes Bibliography Index "This book examines the emergence of professional advertising in western India during the interwar period. It explores the ways in which global manufacturers advanced a 'brand-name capitalism' among the Indian middle class by promoting the sale of global commodities during the 1920s and 1930s, a time when advertising was first introduced in India as a profession and underwent critical transformations. Analysing the cultural strategies, both verbal and visual, used by foreign businesses in their advertisements to capture urban consumers, Haynes argues that the promoters of various commodities crystalized their campaigns around principles of modern conjugality. He also highlights the limitations of brand-name capitalism during this period, examining both its inability to cultivate markets in the countryside or among the urban poor, and its failure to secure middle-class customers. With numerous examples of illustrated advertisements taken from Indian newspapers, the book discusses campaigns for male sex tonics and women's medicines, hot drinks such as Ovaltine and Horlicks, soaps such as Lifebuoy, Lux and Sunlight, cooking mediums such as Dalda and electrical household technologies. By examining the formation of 'brand-name capitalism' and two key structures that accompanied it- the advertising agency and the field of professional advertising- this book sheds new light on the global consumer economy in interwar India, and places developments in South Asia into a larger global history of consumer capitalism."-- Provided by publisher