Marketing of taboo products in the Indian Market

Abstract

Executive Summary

In this world, there are many things that are not spoken about enough, things that should be. The things that culturally, socially, or otherwise restrict us from saying these things out loud are called as taboos. Taboos are different for different people, classes, sections, locations, or society, basically for every person there is a different concept of taboos. Although normal, these things are very restrictively spoken about due to the social stigma. Over the past years, companies manufacturing products or services relating to such a topic or industry have tried to raise awareness and normalization of these topics. As a society, people have also evolved to normalize many of these things, but not all. Specifically talking about the Indian subcontinent, over the generations there have been many topics that went from taboo to normal. This happened mainly because people started talking about it. Marketing these concepts or products of taboo has also been a tough task through the years. In my report I have tried to compile the ways of the past and how things are in the present at the taboo industry. Although profit yielding, there are no real hard numbers in public forums to actually determine the growth or decline of the industry. Having taken into consideration into various ads from the different decades, I have tried to decode how the marketing of such products have grown over the past few years. From the restrictive mindset in the 60s to a comparatively liberal one in the 80s to the social media age of the 2010s, not only the people’s mindset, but the ways and means of marketing these products have evolved dramatically. I have tried to join the dots and make up a plotline as distinctly as I could. For my primary research, I have surveyed some 76 people belonging to the different age groups straight from their 20s to their 60s. This population consists of both men and women. I have asked them about their comfort level with the topic, how were they educated on the same, what advertisements have they seen recently, what platforms have they seen them on and finally what have they done to make these topics a little bit more comfortable to talk about in the society. Although a lot of people admitted to being aware on the topic, not everyone was keen enough to come out and talk about the same. On the flip side of the coin, when we talked about the adverts and their impact on the society, majority people accepted that these ads were informative and necessary. They ads left a thought-provoking effect with a back shadow of humor and information in them. Ultimately, even though we have come a long way, there are still many topics that are considered as taboo in the society, topics we need to normalize.