Sunday, September 15, 2013

Seductive, Suggestive, Sleazy!!!

Published in Markathon,

Monthly Marketing Magazine of IIM Shillong



Objectifying women and using their body as marketing instruments.


When was the last time you sae an advertisement catering to the men which did not have a sexy, desirable and available women as the prize, that is after you have bought the product. Right from the sleazy advertisements of AXE Deodorants, (and by extension all deodorants in general, but I will give them first mover advantage here) to the suggestive ads of BMW cars all rely upon the women, the ultimate prize, through the product. Are the advertisers simply utilizing the latent and unspoken of instinct that drives us to sell the product or do they take a step beyond the line?


    
Any advertisement tries to create a lasting impact on the mind of the viewers, and they find that attraction to opposite sex is one medium which allows for easy impact. Consider for instance the concept behind the AXE series of ads, which are one the highest viewed in India (on the internet apart from the runtime on television). While with their product, their ad might change they are fixed upon the concept: the end effect will be the “AXE effect” where the axe man becomes a prize for every woman. This single line concept has worked for them multiple times and in such a scenario why would not a company mint the gold mine?

In fact the advertising world has created stereotype of women in two categories. For a men’s product, a woman is a prize, who is impressed or drawn upon by the possession of the product by the man. In the women section again, especially in the Indian scenario the women is seen as a house maker, and the use of the product would entail her the appreciation of the family (or husband in the growing nuclear family) and fill her with a sense of fulfilment of her duty, or the product would enhance her beauty or other bodily, cosmetic part drawing the awe of friends and gaze of men. On paper this sounds harmless and it is. Men attracted to women is a reality of life, and true, we always try to impress the other sex, through actions or otherwise. But it is the excess that creeps into the system that creates fissures in the society.

Below are some of the ads run by famous companies:






This American Apparel ad was banned as being too suggestive.















The same fate was faced by this ad of Calvin Klein Jeans in Australia that boasted of being daring.














This advertisement in Dolce & Gabbana was retracted after the people complained that it glorified gang rape.










Almost 76% of women in India and one out of six women in America are victims of sexual assault. The stats are appallingly higher in many other countries. Yet advertisers often make light of sexual violence towards women. They disguise it as innuendo, humour or artistic expression and hope the shock factor will work promotional magic for their product. The marketers describe it as edgy fantasy scenarios and often point to some psychological results to their benefit. Many times the shock or the outrage factor works in their favour. As they say no publicity is bad publicity. In fact the controversy surrounding the products, spread like wildfire on the cyber space and the impact is created. All of a sudden the product is imprinted in everyone’s mind.




Look at this ad by McDonald’s. They fell so low that people were shocked. They used the rape intimation hotline tag of “You’re not alone” to promote the Big Mac.











In light of such advertisements the any logic falls apart and is shredded to pieces.
You begin to wonder if there is a line there at all? Or everything that catches our eyeballs is a strategy to associate some product with us?

The suggestion boiling down is that it is the perception of the brand that is the invisible and mutable line for them. So when Maruti SX4 is released with women lamenting that all men are gone is it the brand image of Maruti being the preferred choice of middle class that stops the advertisements short of what BMW did? Ford may never have approved the leaked JWT released ads of Ford Figo which shows scantily clad, tied women in the boot of the car, with the bunga-bunga Berlusconi flashing a V sign, but that the idea was floated and actually put on paper gives a glimpse of the world where the fame-lights have made them myopic to morals, and sometimes basic human sentiments.

And these glaring stories are the top of the line, there are so many more. A seductive woman in an ad that has no requirement of her whatsoever is where this all begins. And my accusations and questions are neither new nor undiscovered.

Many studies have revealed that women abuse in marketing practices negatively affects social values and her role in the society. Though the position of women have improved but their negative portrayal in way that degraded them continues. Content with sexual images exploiting the human body bring out the animal instinct in humans degrading the feminine role and insulting the social etiquette. Many also attribute adolescent or teen exposure to such sexually explicit and suggestive causes many defaults at the subconscious level resulting in increase in sexuality, objectification of women and violent behaviour.

Is there an end to the road? Yes, but certainly not objectively. No amount of regulation can define and proscribe suggestive, seductive and such ads. With the advent of internet it is of no use either, for what is forbidden can always be leaked in the cyberspace. The answer lies with us: the future managers. Defining ethics may take a lifetime but actions that improve human capacities are good or ethical and with this we can certainly determine our decisions.

Sexual arousal may have the instant impact, but there are other emotions and values that have deeper and longer impressions. They are not guilty pleasures, and you can look at your sister, mother, girlfriend without shame.




Saturday, September 14, 2013

Live Free and FIREWALL Hard!

Published in Incubator,

The Entrepreneurship Magazine of IIM Shillong.




On the growing concerns of cyber security and potential business for start-ups.


The path of human evolution is closely linked to our defence systems. I am no anthropologist but I can see that the needs of today were actually the military necessities of times gone by. The computer, cryptographs, Internet, rockets, cars are by products of the Second World War. The famous saying goes that the fourth world war if ever fought will be in bricks and stones. Maybe. But the third for sure will be fought in the cyberspace.

And it has already begun!


Cyber security today has become paramount to national security. Security experts point out that there are two types of companies today: those which know that they have been hacked and others who have been hacked without realizing it. I propose its extrapolation to nations: states which know they have been hacked and those who know it but act ignorant. And of course there is a third category: states with army of hackers to invade other nations.

If I were to name the militarily active warzones of the world cyberspace would be my first choice. It is an active warzone, with multiple fronts, multiple combatants and no rules. The war zone has state players snooping around, private companies, ethical hackers and hackers who are there for the fun of it. The reported hackings around the world has increased by a phenomenal 42% on a year on year basis. While companies are more forthcoming in reporting hacking, states find a certain amount of reluctance to admit it. First no one country can be exonerated or proved guilty and since little can be proved any gung-ho about the matter it is quickly brushed under the carpet.

There has been a rise in two generation of hackers.  One is closely associated with the state armies like China or Russia snooping in other nations defence systems, or (being politically incorrect) USA and Israel whose Stuxnet virus was responsible for hacking into Tehran’s nuclear facilities. The other are relatively new entrants: companies or hackers who snoop in the cyberspace just to create havoc. Some self-appointed cyber vigilantes waged a cyber-war between Indian hackers and their Pakistani counterparts, each trying to unmask the other nation’s state websites.



With cyber space becoming the focus of the country’s defence it is immensely important for the country to channelize their cyber hackers in a right direction. A misguided hacker may just post the operations of a complex weapon on the internet for the benefit of the terrorists, or potential hacking into sensitive government databases can hold the country to ransom, with target spectrum of economy to defence systems. Maybe underlying the charisma and debonair of John McClane was a very real potential threat in Die Hard 4.0, where cyber terrorists hack into the government database.

The real problem is defining the cyber space and then protecting it. With the number of border issues still on ground demarcating the abstract space seems next to impossible. “If you don’t really know where your castle starts and ends, you can’t really build an effective wall and moat around it”, says Nils Phulmann, former security chief of Zynga and founder of cloud security alliance. India, unfortunately with its democratic baggage is not exactly a model of pro-activeness, but it is not far reaching to assume that China’s hackers used Indian cyber security hacking as net practice before taking on America.

Indian government and many start-ups need to look into the cyber security sector. Pessimistically, most of the world (ones that matter or is our potential threat or competitor) knows all about our missile programmes, company data and stock exchange, in the most optimistic view, they are struggling hard to shred through last few firewalls and blast in. In any case we are grossly underprepared and defenseless.



The American’s, touchy about their security after Pearl Harbour and 9/11 and petulant of their numero-uno status with regard to a inflaming China and cantankerous Russia, have already begun a debate about how best to tackle the problem. America has been a cheerleader for an international convention on cybercrime that prohibits private actors from striking out online. However there is a growing section which advocates a more aggressive approach, where companies or security firms they employ are allowed to strike back at the hackers or at least track stolen files and reclaim them or prevent their use without damaging other networks.

The Annual Black Hat event last year displayed the growing concern of companies with the issue. Some entrepreneurs have already dived into this area knowing full well that with the growing times they will be the forefront of defence capacities. Some have developed ingenious solutions like planting false info, gibberish data, creating a virtual labyrinth, an endless maze, crunching huge data to identify threat and shut down and much more. Some have even developed codes to strike back when required.

India with its neighbour concern has this one actual chance to stay in the game and not be overrun by China and the others. Though little thought seems to be given in this direction by anyone. The whole country is at a standstill for the next elections, and the army, traditional as always, is still struggling to catch up with China and effectively deter Pakistan on land to think of the cyberspace. What is appalling is the fact that no one is even recognizing this as a potential threat. But then we wait till the problem snowballs. It may take at least two years for the next government formed to begin work, assuming it is not a hung parliament and after diktats of the coalition dharma have been fulfilled. After that what remains to be seen is who is at the helm of affairs. It seems that a tech savvy aggressive PM may give this direction a thought rather than a puppet prime minister or worse still a ‘yuvraaj’ PM who might take one term to understand the problem.

Why I insist on governmental interference is because this is one defence system that we will have to develop indigenously and not buy from Russia or USA. And for a change we will be playing on a favourable turf: the IT industry is poster boy of our growth story. We do not have dearth of qualified engineers and we have space to experiment without drawing the irk of communities, locals, castes or other democratic ills. Finally we have an area where we can innovate and lead developing our resources and technology.

The Indian Inc. (as the growing Indian industries are often referred) is usually more enterprising and pro-active. With many of top Indian companies turning global they will face the same hacking risk as their American counterparts and this may just give them the impetus to invest into cyber security. While the country tackles other issues the companies can actually use this as an opportunity to wall their cyber space and continuously develop it. Many companies are of the view that anything within their firewall is safe, but with hackers scaling new heights with impunity the companies will be forced to change their binary view.



There are quite a few ethical hacking groups in India, like the Indian Cyber Army aka Indishell, Team NUTS, Team Gray Hat, Lords of Dharmaraja and the Indian Cyber Devils, that have reportedly been working to safeguards India's cyber space. Many of them in their free time act as patriots hacking in Pakistani and Chinese cyber space. The companies on the other hand have the opportunity to develop algorithms and software’s required for security concerns of tomorrow, all before government wakes up to regularise it. Many of these developed system may form the blueprint of the regulations. What the IT firms in India have at hand is potentially a billion dollar industry. With cloud computing and state backed hacking they are the hotspots of tomorrow. Investing in the security would make a wise decision for it can always be sold to an ailing company to country.

The government on the other hand has a potential industry that if effectively harnessed could be its strategic launch in the world giving up on it. Better control the fire lest we are fighting with it both without and within.

“If someone is shooting on you the last thing you focus on is the calibre of the bullet”- Gorge Kurtz.