Ambi Parameswaran On Six Decades Of Indian Advertising, Influencer Mania And The Future Of Brand Building
· Free Press Journal
Advertising has never merely sold products; it has documented India's changing aspirations, anxieties and ambitions. Few have chronicled that journey as closely as Ambi Parameswaran. In the 10th-anniversary edition of Nawab, Nudes and Noodles: India Through 60 Years of Advertising, the veteran advertising professional extends the original 50-year narrative to examine a decade shaped by digital disruption, influencers, fragmented media, COVID and AI.
Rather than rewrite the original book, Parameswaran has added a new 50-page section covering 2015-2025, examining how consumers, culture and advertising have evolved. In this conversation, he discusses why advertising can influence behaviour but rarely fundamental beliefs whether influencer marketing has become a case of herd mentality, why impressions do not necessarily translate into brand building, and what enduring brands can teach marketers navigating an increasingly fragmented media landscape.
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Excerpts from the interview:
The first edition covered 50 years of Indian advertising. What compelled you to revisit it, and what does the additional decade reveal?
The book was launched in June 2016 and continued to sell well. Over the years, readers began asking whether I would update it. I considered rewriting the entire book but felt that could compromise what worked in the original. I retained the original and added a new section covering 2015 to 2025. I spent about six months researching the decade and identified more than 100 campaigns. The new section looks at how consumers, households, GDP and advertising have changed, including the impact of COVID. It eventually became about 50 pages, taking the book to roughly 350 pages.
But this is not a history of Indian advertising or a collection of award-winning campaigns. The focus is people and popular culture, on how society changes and how advertising reflects those changes.
Can advertising change culture with algorithms, influencers and AI, faster than society itself?
I would be cautious about saying that. Advertising can influence behaviour, but it cannot fundamentally change beliefs. Beliefs are shaped by family, religion, political leaders and social activists.
Advertising can tell you to use a QR code, invest in mutual funds or brush your teeth at night. Those are behavioural changes. But can a 30-second commercial fundamentally alter someone's value system? I doubt it.
Influencers are similar. Will someone completely rethink their attitude towards something as fundamental as inter-caste marriage because an influencer said something? I'm not sure.
The Influencer mania, why are brands heavily investing in influencers?
Because consumers have moved. Earlier, people spent considerable time watching television. Today, much of that time is spent watching Instagram Reels. So marketers ask: where can I catch the consumer?
If your consumer is watching Reels, you get an influencer to put your brand into that environment.
But the bigger question is whether it is building the brand. I tell clients: impressions are fine, but are you doing classical research to see whether top-of-mind or aided awareness is increasing?
You may generate 50 million impressions in a month. If your top-of-mind awareness has remained at 8% or fallen, what have those impressions achieved? There is a degree of herd mentality. If one company says it has signed up 10,000 influencers, everyone else thinks they need to do the same.
Does influencer marketing actually work for brands?
Some companies believe it does. D2C brands have been smarter because they can connect an influencer's post directly to a sale. If I pay an influencer `1 lakh and generate `3 lakh worth of sales through that link, I have accountability. But without that connection, how do I know the consumer even saw the message, let alone acted on it?
Consumers are also becoming more sophisticated. They know Shah Rukh Khan isn't necessarily driving a Hyundai or drinking Pepsi. They know an influencer may not actually be using the shampoo or cosmetics they endorse.
At best, endorsement may encourage trial. If the product isn’t delivered, the brand is gone.
Amul seems to demonstrate another model. It has remained top-of-mind without chasing influencer numbers. What does that tell us?
Amul has consistently believed in advertising and maintained its discipline. It doesn’t need thousands of influencers to remain culturally relevant. The larger lesson is that brands need to know what they are trying to achieve. If the objective is immediate commerce, influencer marketing can be useful. But if the objective is long-term brand building, you need to measure whether the brand is becoming stronger.
If you had to rename the book today, what three words would define Indian advertising?
I don't know! Nawab, Nudes and Noodles came from my love of alliterative titles, and partly from Amar Akbar Anthony.
The original title was Nawabs, Nudes and Navels. My boss then felt it sounded too sleazy, so I changed it. Around that time, the Maggi controversy was dominating conversations, and Noodles clicked.
Today, perhaps the words would have something to do with AI, influencers and numbers. But finding the right alliteration isn't easy!
You have deliberately chosen not to write an advertising history. Why?
I was inspired by books examining how Bollywood reflects society. I felt there wasn't an equivalent perspective on advertising. I have organised the book around people and culture, women, children, the elderly, food, clothing, automobiles, technology, language and censorship.
Advertising is often presented as if someone simply has an idea and makes an ad. The reality is far more complicated. There is a client brief, agency interpretation, internal selling, production, directors and multiple egos and ideas involved.
The interesting stories are often behind the campaigns.
Take the famous Lalitaji Surf campaign. It almost didn't happen because the client worried that Lalitaji appeared too aggressive. The campaign was eventually softened and went on to become a breakthrough. It showed an upper-class Indian woman arguing with a male shopkeeper, something advertising had rarely portrayed.
That is why the backstories matter. They show how advertising gets made and how society changes through those decisions.
We now talk constantly about empowerment, representation and purpose. What can today's advertising learn from campaigns that broke the mould?
The important thing is to understand the cultural insight behind the campaign rather than simply reproducing its surface.
Some campaigns worked because they captured something genuinely changing in society. The Ariel — Share the Load work, for instance, opened a conversation around gender roles.
The challenge today is to find those deeper insights again. Trends come and go. Platforms change. Technology changes. But human behaviour remains the foundation.
And that is ultimately what I wanted the book to capture: not advertising as an industry, but advertising as a reflection of India.