Ads have the ability to both inspire and outrage us. A recent ad campaign by Kerala Fashion Jewellery or KFJ Gold has incited considerable outrage after they compared daughters to tension.
It all began some days ago, when KFJ Gold asked customers to SMS “Tension” to the number 54242, telling senders that they would receive a reply on Independence Day, as to what that tension was, and how they could get rid of it.
Simultaneously a print and TV ad were aired with the print ad stating, “Kalyana vayasula ponnu irundhaale tension dhaane!” meaning that a girl of marriageable age was a source of “tension,” reported The News Minute.
The TV ad, on the other hand, had actor Prakash Raj suggesting that ‘Ungallukkum Kalyana Vayasula Tension Irundhale’ – If you have a tension of marriageable age in your house,’ then sms Tension to 5242.
Screen grab
There is something utterly revolting about this ad. It delegates the role of a woman to just that – a source of tension for her family. As long as women continue to be propagated by ads like these as mere marriageable property, as transactional barter with the groom’s family, as a source of expenditure for the bride’s family, can one still wonder why female infanticide is still widely prevalent? Does it come as a surprise that many families strangle a newborn girl in her cradle or leave her to die in a municipality dustbin?
For every step taken forward by activists and the government in trying to change people’s mentality with regard to girl children and women, regressive ads like these take progress two steps backward, right back to where it started.
In this case, appalled by this regressive ad, a PIL was filed by S. Safiath of Chennai in the Madras High Court seeking the Chennai Police Commissioner to remove the hoardings, which “degrades and demeans” women and girls, reported The Hindu.
People also slammed the ad on social media, calling it regressive, backward, disgusting and shameful.
Pls all of you SMS “morons” to KFJ Gold https://t.co/nwHLCeeWLV
— Sowmiya Ashok (@sowmiyashok) August 17, 2015
Madam #jayalalithaa #TamilNadu pls stop #KFJGOLD tension advtmnt. Daughters r not tension, they r Lakshmi’s of every family.
— Shanmugam (@amhere_shan) August 16, 2015
@PMOIndia, sir already we r fighting 4 growth of female children in our nation. advtmt from #kfjgold indirectly entertaining dowry
— Shanmugam (@amhere_shan) August 16, 2015
The general outrage prompted the jewellery brand to come with some knee-jerk defensive tactics. But instead of making some clever comeback to extricate themselves out of this situation, the brand put it out that the ‘sms campaign was just a teaser’ and that they didn’t mean to outrage people and the actual meaning behind their campaign will become clear once they complete the campaign.
“We at KFJ, do not consider women inferior in any way. Rather we believe that they are a blessing to families and society at large. And we have also made it very clear in our communication that daughter is not the tension but buying gold at the lowest price is the tension,” said the CEO of KFJ in a statement put out on Facebook.
Actor Prakash Raj also clarified the issue on Twitter:
#kfj gold ad.With due respect to the concerns of all who have taken offence. I would like to state that it was not the intention.(cont)
— Prakash Raj (@prakashraaj) August 17, 2015
It is aimed at the mindset of people who think girl child is “tension”. The ad clearly states it is the rate of gold u gift ..not the girl.
— Prakash Raj (@prakashraaj) August 17, 2015
The resulting hastily re-hashed ad was an exercise in stupidity that even the dimmest of readers would censure.
The print ad begins with ‘A girl of marriageable age is a source of tension’ followed by the words, ‘Definitely Not.’ We can very well see where the changes have been made here. And then follows the tagline: “Getting your daughter’s wedding jewellery of her choice, of the lowest market rate is the tension.”
If the earlier ads were regressive and outrageous, the new rehashed ones just plain flabbergast you. Content like this should clearly not be allowed to air, ANYWHERE.
This is not the first time that jewellery brands have shown themselves to be regressive, catering to the conservative and propagating something akin to a dowry system. It’s bad enough that they always show brides laden in gold, putting undue pressure on families and brides to deck themselves similarly, but a billboard ad captured last year by Reddit set an all new low in this regard. Check this out:
Source: Reddit
The only signs of progressiveness were shown by Tanishq, whose brilliantly progressive ad on remarriage rocked the Internet highways.
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