Written by: Sanjay Puri - 23058, Grade XII
Posted on: 12 October, 2022
Surrogate advertising refers to a form of advertisement that duplicates the brand image of one product to promote another product of the same brand. The major country where the surrogate advertisements are mostly popular is our neighboring country,India. Famous celebrities like Ajay Devgan, Shahrukh Khan, Amitabh Bachchan, Salman Khan, Akshay Kumar and many more promote tobacco brands although they don’t promote it directly but the viewers can easily understand that the companies they promote are not known for making pan masala or elaichis, they are primarily known for making tobacco products. In the 90’s,alcohol and tobacco products were allowed to be advertised directly by showing warning signs in India. But the government of India banned the advertisements promoting tobacco and liquor products in 1995. So, these companies started to make surrogate advertisements by sponsoring big events and luring big celebrities by giving them hefty sums of money to promote these products.The surrogate advertisements are very effective as a survey showed that 42 out of 50 people watching surrogate advertisements realize that the advertisement is done to promote tobacco and alcohol. Surrogate advertisements do impact a consumer’s buying decision as well. They also inform customers about the leading liquor brands and thus promote sales.The companies are so keen to promote their product that they are literally expanding their product and making new products and promoting them but everyone knows the main motive. Some companies even don’t sell the products they advertise and they are only trying to promote their tobacco and liquor products. Surrogate advertising is done on a very high level. These types of advertisements should be banned as they promote risky products that have a lot of harm on human health. In conclusion,I want to request the big celebrities that please don’t do surrogate advertisements because the fans of the celebrities will surely get encouraged to buy these products and this will impact their health. The surrogate advertisements doesn’t only promote people to buy these products but it encourages even the people of our country and many South Asian nations citizens to buy these harmful cancer causing products. Surrogate advertisements must be banned from being shown on television or any online mediums as these are literally the promotion of poisonous products in the name of juice, elaichi and so many side products of the big liquor and tobacco products.
