The Impact of Indian’s Culture in Public Relation and Communication

First of India's most important contributions to world culture, in general, and European, in particular, can be found in its philosophy and spiritual tradition. For the typical European, rather Western, the notion of Indian philosophy is narrow and without foundation. What is worse is that in the eyes of Euro-American authors dealing with Indian philosophy, it cannot be distinguished from religion; in both cases, it would be the Other World and negation of life. Nevertheless, it cannot be denied that at least some of the best European intelligence has studied in depth the Indian philosophical and spiritual tradition and that their work has proved invaluable for the proper understanding of the true relationship between Europe and Europe. Asia, and especially India.

It remains however that the mainstream of European thought has been and continues to be either indifferent or misinformed about Indian philosophy and its spiritual heritage. One of the most serious misunderstandings is that Indian philosophy is desperately 'metaphysical,' in the worst sense. It is very curious to observe that the English thinkers, supposed to know India, better than others, because of the colonial past, failed miserably to situate the country, with its philosophy and religion, in a correct perspective. The fact that Indian philosophy has reached European readers in a reasonably correct form is due to a few select Indianists, German and French. For the most part, it was a branch of 'Indology', but it also turned out to be only a branch of 'xenology', the study by foreigners of other foreigners, this word comes from the Greek xenos which designates the foreigner.

The first point I would like to emphasize is that Indian philosophy is not necessarily metaphysical or religious. In the broad spectrum of Indian traditions, there have been many systems close to naturalism, materialism, and hedonism. Most European historians of Indian thought tend to forget that there have been many pre-Vedic, non-Vedic, and even anti-Vedic schools of thought, very common among the people.

It would not be too much to recall that both Buddhism and Jainism, which survive until now, do not accept the infallible proclaimed authority of the Vedas, and yet they have continued to occupy a prominent place in the liberal framework of Indian philosophical thought. It is more important to recall today that even some major currents of Indian thought as Samkhya (the philosophy of number), Vail Esika (the philosophy of particularism or atomism) and Yoga, in their early formulations they happen to be secular, that is, they have nothing to do with God. The recognition of God in composite systems like Samkhya-Yoga and Nyaya-Vaiaesika proved to be a further development, easy to understand by the growing influence of Vedic thought.

Indian philosophers have written many books, among others, on the conception of molecular motion (parispandana), the analysis of motion, the cause and types of motion, composition and gravity, the composition of forces, typical cases. curvilinear motion, vibratory motion, rotary motion, fluid movement, and motion measurement. All these fundamental concepts of physics have been discussed at length on the basis of convincing examples. It is also possible to refer to the concepts of space and time units, the components of velocity, relative motion and serial motion. The Indian representation of acoustics, with the analysis of sound, echo, pitch, intensity and timbre, allows a complete description of musical sounds.

The life of plants and animals has been treated in detail by authors such as Caraka and Suaruta. The zoological taxonomy of Umasvati clearly demonstrates the interest of empirical research among Indian thinkers.

The Indian tradition of grammar and linguistics is perhaps the oldest in the world. The rigour, the rules and the complete character of Panini's grammar, written at one time between 700 BC. J-C. and 500 BC J-C. still inspires fear and admiration among modern linguists. The fact that there were other great grammarians before Panini appears clearly in the work of this one. He followed a long line of grammarians from Katyayana (250 BC) and Patanjali (150 BC), to Bhartrhari (around 450-510), Mandana Mira (about 690) and Helarja (about 980). Several other distinguished grammarians and linguists, deserving special mention, are Bhattoj Diksita (1590), Konda Bhatta (1640) and Nageaa Bhatta (1714).

In the Indian tradition, grammar, at the very beginning, has been treated as a distinct philosophical discipline. Different from astronomy, architecture, agriculture and so on. In its analytical aspect, which Panini and his close followers point out, the philosophical character of the discipline is not articulated explicitly. But in the main work of Bhartrihari, the philosophy of language receives a clear and explicit exposition. In Vedic literature, Vak has been given a very special ontological status. Language is said to be essential in the nature of expressive force (sputan or spuran) and is proclaimed as reality itself. These extraordinary words go back to the Veda itself; the point having been exposed by other authors like Mandana Misra, in his work Spotasiddhi.

It should be mentioned here that the spota theory of Bhartrihari and Mandana Misra has been criticized by mimamsakas such as Kumarila Bhatta and Buddhists such as Dharmakirti. The Indian grammatical tradition is very rich in its diversity. Yet, it has developed through dialogue and debate between advocates of different schools. If followed correctly, the grammatical tradition of India is an important contribution of this country to world culture, especially compared to comparative linguistics (particularly in relation to the Indo-European language family).

At NEW DELHI. In July 2003, mobile phone operator Hutch, the Indian subsidiary of giant Hutchinson, launched its first commercial on Indian TV. Directed by the agency Ogilvy & Mather (WPP group), it featured a little boy who, from the couch to the hairdresser through the swing, was inevitably followed by a cute little puppy, all on a background bewitching musical. The slogan: 'Wherever you go, our network follows you. 'Taking advantage of the low costs in India, Hutch then declined the campaign on all fronts. In the newspapers, on the billboards, the irresistible duet looked straight into your eyes, the music accompanied you to the elevator from Bombay, and there were footprints of the puppy in the corridors of Bangalore's shopping centers.

In just a few weeks, Hutch subscription sales jumped 70%. Luxurious decor, family values, tenderness, efficiency... The pub had seduced the middle class, THE Indian advertising target par excellence, since it lists, according to the criteria selected, between 150 and 300 million consumers. An example, too, of the revival of the Indian pub, haunted, until recently, by spots of a rare blandness for shampoos or chewing tobacco. 'For a few years, we have been watching on the international scene. It took a long time and we will have to consolidate our reputation, but we have come a long way in terms of creativity, 'says Piyush Pandey, creative director at O & M and a true guru of Indian advertising. With others, this man has in a few years revolutionized commercials, introducing professionalism but also humor, emotions and consistency. So much so that he was the first Indian to be chosen to chair the Cannes jury.

The qualitative leap is such that some Indian spots are now adapted to be distributed abroad. Ambitious, some Indian advertisers are even dreaming of an India where one would outsource the production of campaigns for foreign markets. The Italian Perfetti and others have already tried the experiment successfully. 'The creation requires a good knowledge of the market culture that you are talking to, says John Goodman, CEO of O & M South Asia. It is not certain that Indians are as good at tackling Western markets.'

In India, moreover, the 'Indianization' of pubs is an unavoidable rule, including for international campaigns. 'The weight of history, cultural identity is omnipresent in this country, to ignore it is to go straight into the wall,' said Amit Agnihotri, editor of the magazine 'Pitch'. Heavyweights such as Coca-Cola, Pepsi, Honda, Samsung or LG are therefore systematically calling on Bollywood stars or players on the national cricket team to be sure to be popular. Others are trying to play on Indian humor, the desire for a better quality of life for the middle class and family values, pillars of society in this country still very conservative. No one, in any case, dares to stage foreigners and, in any case, the spots must be in Hindi or in a regional language.

Now recognized abroad, the current innovation is also due to the fact that the economic boom of recent years (+ 7% in 2004-2005, + 8.1% in 2003-2004) has brought new customers: the growth drivers of advertising agencies are no longer the staples, but the automotive, telecoms, financial services and generic pubs for multinationals. As a result, annual advertising spending has risen from 200,000 euros in 1993 to around 2 billion today, and the market is growing at around 10% a year. The direct consequence of the emergence of a middle class more and more consumer, especially through the development of bank credit.

'The strong economic growth leads to a virtuous circle,' summarizes Amit Agnihotri. New sectors have emerged, customers are more numerous, and everyone is trying to stand out because of growing competition in many sectors. It's a blessing for agencies, starting with the international heavyweights, who, having bought most of the successful local agencies in recent years, dominate the Indian scene. Via JWT, O & M, Contract and a few others, the WPP group has almost half the market share, followed by Omnicom (RK Swamy BBDO and TBWA-Anthem), Interpublic (McCann, Lowe, SSC & B, Quadrant and a few others). others), Publicis, Dentsu and Havas.

All believe that the Indian potential is enormous. 'India has become a priority market,' says John Goodman, CEO of O & M South Asia. This country is still largely 'under-publicized': the ratio of advertising expenditure to GDP is lower than that of China, where the vectors of communication are even less, and even to that of Indonesia, whose population is yet five times smaller. 'Finally, even slow, economic liberalization attracts every year more foreign brands, which supports the growth of the market while stimulating the passage of Indian brands that are working to resist the onslaught. Opening the distribution to foreign investors should also result in an influx of new international customers.

As a symbol of the growing maturity of the Indian advertising market, the fastest-growing activities have in recent years been indirect advertising (events, public relations, direct marketing, etc.), to the point where most agencies have already opened subdivisions. For the time being, the mass media, however, continue to concentrate more than two-thirds of spending, television and, to a lesser extent, press. The display, it is only far behind, as radios since the advent of the FM has intervened very recently. As for the Internet, its growth is phenomenal, even if its volumes remain so far very small. In other words, the small screen remains the most effective vector for brands. Its dominance is all the more stubborn as the number of media multiplies with the appearance of dozens of new channels each year, and that the tariffs continue to be ridiculously low, compared to the rest of the world.