February 13, 2008
Mera Farz? How do you say, "A Blogger's Duty", in Hindi?Musings
Dear ING Direct,
I blog this with a heavy heart.
Earlier today, mastervk submitted a link to a news story which caught my attention; it dealt with gender inequality and speaking out against a regressive advertising campaign in India. Duly noted, I thought, rather sure I was going to blog about it later. I saw the excerpt for this story a few more times throughout the day, but apparently I was not really understanding it, for if I had, the disappointment I suddenly feel would have flattened me earlier.
I didn’t realize they were talking about you.
You, ING, you are the one behind this?
In the commercial, the birth of a girl is followed by what the Delhi government considers as a derogatory statement: Hai To Pyaari Lekin Bojh Hai Bhari (Though loveable, she’s still a burden). “It sends out wrong message,” said education secretary Rina Ray. She has written to National Commission for Protection of Child Rights and Delhi Commission for Women(DCW) asking them to ensure the advertisement is withdrawn and also a public apology is issued by the insurance firm on all channels.
Ray is unhappy with the overall gender bias in the ad, particularly the scene which depicts fathers being weighed down by the financial costs involved in bringing up their daughters and funding their studies so much so that the ground beneath their feet caves in. Ray quotes a hospital scene from the commercial in her letter which depicts girls as a burden.
Ray said: “This is unfair. Parents spend money for a boy’s education too. Then why single out girls, especially when the country is positively debating women empowerment.”
The DCW has written to the insurance company asking them to stop airing the advertisement. “Promoting such biased views on the girl child may have a demoralising impact on women,” said Barkha Singh, DCW chairperson.
The TOIlet paper concludes with this paragraph:
However, the company said they have not received any letter. “The ad was not meant to be derogatory to anybody and hurt others’ sentiments. Its aimed at rekindling emotions and sentiments of a father’s duty (‘mera farz’). We will look into the objection and take recourse if the ad has hurt anybody,” said Geeta Sarin, regional general manager, ING Vysya Life Insurance Co ltd.
Haven’t received a letter? Yet. You haven’t received a letter, yet. You know what else you haven’t received yet? My notice to cancel all my accounts with you. Because as much as I love you (and oh, how I do), I love little girls, equality and not perpetuating bullshit, more.
Do you know how difficult this is for me? Kindly allow me to explain why I feel a sense of loss about something as plain as a bank account.
Like almost every American, I was an AmeriCAN’T when it came to saving money. My “regular” savings account did not excite me, the interest it paid was insulting and often, it was pressed in to duty as a shallow well for emergency transfers to my checking account, to make sure that my health insurance premium was paid instead of bounced. I did not save. My anemic Roth IRA doesn’t count.
Then, I met someone a few years ago. He was many things, but most relevant for this story, he was a very, very wealthy C-level exec. I didn’t know any of that when I started dating him (like a movie, na?), but that’s another story, one which will later go in to a work of “fiction”. Actually, that’s relevant, too, because if that dream ever did come true and someone paid me to type a few hundred pages of something, that money was heading straight for you.
Anyway, I still remember the exact conversation which brought ING in to my life. I was teasing him for spending on his very gorgeous German car what most people spent on houses when he grew serious and told me that it was paid off. That he wasn’t shady or irresponsible and despite his infamously turning down an Ivy League med school, he was not stupid. “Believe it or not, I’m a saver,” he said. And he mentioned you. Orange, wonderful ING Direct-you. “I love my ING account,” he said, “more than all my others.”
That captured my attention. I worked for Bank of America while I was at UC Davis and then for Citibank just after graduating, when I was still procrastinating mightily about law school.
[Aside: I loved being a teller at BofA in the bay area. It was one of my favorite jobs, ever. It was so fun, I used to joke that if I won the lottery and could afford to do anything, I’d be a teller again, because I liked writing people’s balance information on Hello Kitty mini-memo paper and helping the Spanish-speaking customers, who were so old skool, they still came in with tiny, ecru-colored savings booklets for me to write in…my Punjabi customers…well, that could be a post itself. I loved BofA so much, that I have never left them, even though I could not bank with them in DC when I commenced grad school in 1999. I’m loyal, to a fault, and with that I can get back to my post, because if I’m devoted enough to stay with a bank that used to hold my financial aid checks arbitrarily, prevent me from using the ATM and otherwise cause me unbelievable amounts of inconvenience without my leaving, then I’m the kind of customer any company would want. I’ve been with Sprint for ten years; I’ve brought them my entire family and two ex-boyfriends. I’m one of those customers. I deliver.]
I had never, ever heard anyone declare that they “loved” any silly bank account. I thought that perhaps this had to do with the sort of kundi-kissing, kid-gloved treatment that uber-rich people get from their consumer bank-appointed handlers.
Wrong.
“No, I got my Orange account when they came out…and I was making less money than you do, now.” I was perplexed. What was in this Orange kool-aid? Knowing what you now know about my deeply-ingrained loyalties and preferences, you will not be surprised to learn that I was impressed with such a testimonial. I joined. Modest automatic transfers went from BofA to ING and when I got my really ridiculous consulting job, those transfers grew fatter. Now I was drunk off the kool-aid, too, since the drink was not some sweet orange punch but my beloved Peet’s Coffee.
Though ING is a branch-less, direct bank, they do have, of all things, a Cafe in a cute part of Philly. The interior has the familiar Orange ball, free internet access and exquisite coffee. It’s all so random, I know. But I dug it. What does Berkeley coffee (which I never get to drink on this coast) and an airy space to serve it in have to do with the business of banking? Not much, unless you were picking up some material about their products.
At the cafe, you couldn’t do anything with your accounts while sipping Peet’s. But that didn’t matter to me, because it was all so brilliant and subtle. I love checking my email. I love good coffee (which was CHEAP, btw). My virtual bank was giving me both, in one appealing bundle. I loved it. I loved it so much, I have a photo album of my first visit to ING illadelphia, and that’s where the picture for this post comes from. Whenever I visit Philly, the first place I go is ING cafe, for my coffee and bonding session with orange stuff.
But wait, there’s more to my love affair with ING. That savings account grew substantially and 18 months ago, when I had to make one of the most adult choices of my life and move out, to my first grown-up, big-girl apartment, my orange account facilitated that. Me, who had lived with parents until age 23, who had roommates every year after that (it’s $$$ to live in the city, y’all) who had never lived alone…I was going to move. And moving is expensive. And for once, I didn’t have to do the sheepish Indian-perpetual-child thing and call my Mom for scrill.
I had enough of it in my beloved ING Orange account to cover first, last, and deposit for an apartment in a very beautiful, affluent neighborhood. I had enough to pay for moving. I also had something I had never really experienced in my young, free-spirited, under-paid life: independence. And for that, ING grew priceless. I even opened another account with them just last week (what timing). I am loyal and after the thrill of all that apartment-related agency, I assumed I’d be with ING for years.
And then I saw this.
And now, I don’t think of Peet’s, or orange balls, or financial goodness. I think of an advertising campaign which perpetuates a mentality I find reprehensible. I think of how I am confused, because it is ING insurance in India which screwed up, and perhaps that is very different from ING Direct in Amreeka (hey, I’m not the Wharton grad in the bunker, I don’t know these things!), but when I was researching this post and I saw the site for ING Vysya, I immediately recognized an orange lion and very familiar fonts. My stomach knotted and I knew. I just knew I would no longer look at my own accounts quite the same way. And the cynical among you can say that I am one person and insignificant and you would be right. You could point out that ING doesn’t need me and my cute little accounts and you’d be correct.
But.
That guy I dated? He’s still with ING. And he loves little girls and hates the antiquated, ignorant, “daughters-as-burdens”-bullshit as much as I do, even though he’s Punjabi and they’re supposed to be the most son-loving brownies of them all, right? Ha. No. I don’t think he could love a nephew the way he adores that baby girl; if anyone even hinted that she was “loveable, but a burden” I think that person would soon have a few bruises to show for such stupidity.
He’s not married, he has no children, in fact all he has is his little niece. Whom he adores. Who, if something were to happen to her doting Uncle, would inherit all that money in those various ING accounts. So while my paltry interest in ING is of no concern, maybe his will be. You never know who might have one of these accounts, who might be disgusted enough to vote with their feet and move their assets elsewhere. If ING is sincere about looking in to the “objection” and addressing it, I hope they do so, soon. My inner cynic thinks they won’t give a shit about any of this and that is why I’m already looking for a less colorful, but more sensitive place to take my business. I loved you ING, but not enough to look the other way.
Regretfully,
your quondam fan-girl
anna on February 13, 2008 11:55 PM in Business, Gender, Issues, Musings · T·r·a·c·k·b·a·c·k address · Direct link · Email post
:(
Maybe they can go with a better ad agency.
re: girls-r-a-burden, i predict this will change, at least for the wealthy.* it changed for japan about 20 years ago, and now it is changing in korea. for the biologically inclined something like the tivers-willard hypothesis might be work, but i think sociological dynamics are more complicated and "chaotic," so to speak.
* japan and south korea are basically first world nations, so comparing them with india isn't really appropriate, and won't be for a long time. but "NRI" communities probably work. the son preference will change....
Girl, you need to get out of that ING account.
It sure was good "back in the day". Those cute letters they'd send about "woo! your saving rate went up 0.0005%" were nice. humorous even.
I switched to WaMu (I know! the horror!) because their online savings account rates were better. I've heard HSBC is even better, so you may want to invest some research time there.
Anyways, good to keep your eggs in many baskets and move them around.
btw, you're prolly the first person I know who actually visited an ING cafe thingy.
(oh, and I hate BofA. $3 for every ATM transaction? wtf? mera baap doesn't own a bank!)
holy shit, anna, you are my hero. I wish I banked at ING so I could cancel.
if you have over 10k in savings, countrywide savingslink is at 4.75 % APY right now.
i had ing but moved to countrywide. purely because they gave a better percentage. 1.35% difference today.
You look so pritty vitty in the photo
That ING is near Rittenhouse Square! Cool part of town...I knew it looked familiar.
Naked Chocolate shot next! :)
Not just in India. I remember some of those Met Life ads on the Indian TV programs/channels in the US. There was the obedient little wife watching indulgently as her son, her pride and her support scarfed hot hot pooris. She was investing in her future and girls were definitely not part of this. In trying to reach out to the Indian community, Met Life had, in my case at least, lost one customer.
Growing up in India, I often wondered where I fit into the whole drink-up-your-Bournvita-so-you-can-play-better-cricket-and-support-your-parents-in-their-old-age paragidgm. It wasn't just TV. It was real life too. As a girl, you were told there wasn't much you could do or were expected to do. As a counterpoint to these Bournvita ads, there were the Fail and Lovely ads with Karwa chauth or varahalakshmi pooja in the backdrop. Yeah, as a girl, you could look forward to drinking the water after you had washed you husband's feet.
Thanks for writing about this Anna. ING is losing a few more customers today for sure. Is there a way to formally register protest as well?
I can sooooo feel what you write because that is the way I love ING and that is exactly how I feel about this ad too. Saw your post first thing in the morning and had a big discussion with my spouse on where to move our savings.
In the commercial, the birth of a girl is followed by what the Delhi government considers as a derogatory statement: Hai To Pyaari Lekin Bojh Hai Bhari (Though loveable, she’s still a burden).
Isnt the statement mostly true for small town India? Women dont really work after they get married and are completely dependent on their husband for financial support. So they cant really financially help their parents. Plus the parents have to give an exorbitant amount of dowry plus spend a lot of money on the wedding celebration.
Razib to be honest the son preference is alive and well among the NRI community, at least in my andecdotal experience, and from what I've heard its still alive even in Japan, just better masked (in Japan, the falling brthrate probably took the edge off. beggars cant be choosers). There might be a societal pushback against it in Korea but I dunno if I believe its a trend yet.
For those interested, the commercial is at http://youtube.com/watch?v=z7TKz5bIUsg
Aziz, Pagal aadmi: It may be true that the bias is alive and kicking. But what is sad is the perpetuation of it by institutions like ING. Isn't this what Corporate Social Responsibility is all about? To ensure the image the project and the visibility of the firm advocates positive social stereotypes.
Just because we know female infanticide still happens in the villages would it be OK for TV or Media to make commercials about it? Bringing awareness is one thing, perpetuating it is another.
Great post, but I wonder how many more people are going to check out ING right now to see just why you loved it so much.
WAMU for life (Elephant throws up a "W" sign).
thing is... it points to a couple of things. the ad company doing this is a well-known award winning company. the process to pulling this together pro'ly involved focus groups around people's needs and concerns.
for savings minded people, wanting to be able to take care of the daughter likely is top of mind.. and ING is tapping into that concern. could there have been a way to spin that concern in a positive way? i htink so... "help your daughter soar", "give her the wings she needs to kick butt". This version just makes me queasy because it assumes a lifelong 'dependency', which is just wrong.
the second point, if ing vysysa are a separately traded company in india, then ing group has some equity stake in this, but is likely to be hands-off on administration. the ing you interact with in the US, has little to no stake in the indian arm. doesnt hurt to express your concern but i think the indian ngo's are doing a fine job raising a stink about this.
The TOIlet paper concludes with this paragraph
Indeed
I was an AmeriCAN’T your quondam fan-girl
Anna I thought you were orthodox Mallu :)
12 · Laksh said
fyi - the ad was created by rediffusion| dy&r .. that's the indian collaboration of dentsu young and rubicam. i'd put the blame on them more than the bank. for a desi parent, taking care of the kids is top of mind, and is liely the sweet spot for ing's trget demographic. to create an ad that emphasizes 'beti ka bojh' [the daughter's burden] is not just repugnant, it is a dumb creative move. they could have easily done a 'beti ki udan' and created a lifetime model from birth to education to marriage [yes - paying for the wedding still falls within he parents' 'farz' in the indian context. no getting around it. dont tase me bro.]
Eddi,
Before you go cancelling, at least send them an email so they have a chance to correct their mistakes. I pity the fool who said the ad was good to go. I wonder if there will be enough of a response here in the US so that ING will have to respond.
I have ING and BofA and I love their transfer structure but their rates keep going down :(. I even referred people and got $10 for each. Now I am thinking about movin to WaMu or HSBC.
so self-indulgent a post, that i had to abandon it 3/4 of the way through...
and your ultimately humorous explanation for attaching the photo to post is????
I believe foreign companies can only invest up to 26% in Indian insurance joint ventures which may increase to 49% in the future but it is at 26% as of now. As khoofia mentioned I believe the Indian counterparts i.e. Vysya bank may have been more responsible for giving the final approval to the campaign.
That being said, I will revisit putting money in ING direct as from what I recall their deposist are not insured by FDIC. I use HSBC direct and it has been great and they have FDIC insurance for their online accounts.
Women and girls are valued less than their male counterparts in traditional societies, and India is no exception.
That said this ad made me cringe. Traditions like Karva Chauth (discussion from the other thread) are not harmless because
they perpetuate these stereotypes (i.e. male child is more desirable).
However, the company said they have not received any letter. “The ad was not meant to be derogatory to anybody and hurt others’ sentiments. Its aimed at rekindling emotions and sentiments of a father’s duty (‘mera farz’). We will look into the objection and take recourse if the ad has hurt anybody,” said Geeta Sarin, regional general manager, ING Vysya Life Insurance Co ltd.
------
Is she serious? She should've nixed the ad as soon as it landed on her desk. If educated women don't stand up to this nonsense what hope there is for any change in attitude in Desh?
Disgusting!
I agree with my_dog-Jagat about the general sexism of Indian ads I grew up with that, yes, did reflect popular biases but also reinforced them quite forcefully. Ads for food and oil and even Vicks Vaporub or anything that was targeted at "nurturing children" generally had little boys in it. The only little girls in ads were for cutesy purposes (like Vicks ki goli lo). And occasionally there would be the fond parents saving up for their daughter's wedding and sighing about how she's grown, or the brother working overseas sending jewellry for his newly-engaged sister. I haven't watched enough Indian TV in the last couple of years to know if it's changed much. However I remember one ad that really shocked me (not for gender reasons) that was all over the TV about four years ago and won awards etc, that suggest ad people in India are really not terribly sensitive - it was a Fevicol ad that shows a young rural/small town fellow trying to commit suicide, and trying because the beam fell, and people laughing at him, and then when he used Fevicol he succeeded. I thought it was in such awful taste that I wrote to the company and they just wrote back defensively saying it was a wonderful ad and they had won awards for it, and so there.
Even these attitudes have been changing for the last 20 years. In Punjab, laws were passed against the requirement for dowry and limiting the amount of money that families of the bride would be forced to spend on celebration. In that context, it just makes the ING ad all the more disturbing where certain traditions are being phased out and the ad seems to only reinforce them.
ANNA,
Check bankrate.com as its a nice little site to compare banks on everything from their CD rates to savings and investment rates as well as offering info on mortgage rates. It should help you to find another institution.
it was a Fevicol ad that shows a young rural/small town fellow trying to commit suicide, and trying because the beam fell, and people laughing at him, and then when he used Fevicol he succeeded. I thought it was in such awful taste that I wrote to the company and they just wrote back defensively saying it was a wonderful ad and they had won awards for it, and so there.
First, that fevicol ad is a spoof on the legendary movie, Sholay, and Dharmendra's "Moosi, suicide........." sequence. They have lot of ads here, and in India that are spoofs on well known movie sequences.
I agree with my_dog-Jagat about the general sexism of Indian ads I grew up
Even ads here in US of A to this day enforce a traditional family structure, with a loving wife, white picket fences, and the flag. Check most of the ads on your TV right from SUVs to detergents, unless you are talking about beer ads (where there are bikini clad women) or viagara ads.
No long true. And most of the old folks I know at home are taken care of in physical, everyday terms by their daughters, which in labour and effort adds up to a hell of a lot more than the checks their sons occasionally send (which, btw, is usually a tiny amount compared with the inheritance sons received). And I don't know of a single family where the bride and groom have not split expenses (ironically, it's been more common for the woman's family to pay among my American friends). Yet even among elite, well-educated women I know, who earn a fair bit and contribute to the family as much as any man, the assumption persists that they are less "deserving" of their parents' investment than their brothers.
Funnily, this post turned out to be more of an advertisement for ING than a rant against them.. I am on my way to check out what kind of accts they offer... And, no... this is not because I am a misogynist punk.. just because all that glorification of ING seems to have had a subliminal effect on me...
khoofia, good thought, but can't blame the ad agency much.
Typically the brand/marketing people in ING would've generated the insight (e.g.'Daughters are considered a burden by most Indian fathers. ING offers an insurance/banking solution to help relieve that burden slightly')and also made the final decision to run the ad...
So earlier misogynist advertising of Fair & Lovely was made by Balki (Lowe); but HLL was (rightly) blamed for airing it.
And you know what - just to play the devil's advocate here - companies are NOT in the business of social change. They exist to make money. So if they see a strong insight to 'connect' their product with consumers, they're free to use that insight. As politically incorrect though it may be. We can't blame them for perpetrating inequality - they're just using existing social beliefs to sell product. If more people (like most mutineers) disagreed with their premises that 'daughters are a burden' or 'light skin = beauty', they'd change their premises to more accurately reflect reality. Advertising is most effective when it is an accurate mirror of its consumers brains & hearts.
So yes, it's a good idea to try generate a public outcry against something insensitive, but sorry, it's only ever a stop-gap solution.
I normally have a high tolerance for un-PC ads. But this one is ridiculous. And for the company not to even realize how dumb the ad is after it was pointed is makes me angry. And the spokesperson was a woman too.
It is amazing no one has started whining about how the evil ABD Anna is out to tarnish India again. Please prove me wrong and don't do an impersonation of a rediff reader.
Kush, I grew up on Sholay. I can recite every line to you, and know every scene. That ad was NOT a spoof on Sholay. It showed a dead person at the end of it. You find that funny?
You find that funny?
I did not funny or anything. I was just where they got inspired from.
To this day, Sholay inspires hazaaar ads, right now, on India TV, they have Bharati AirTel ad, that spoofs one of the Sholay sequence.
>>“It sends out wrong message,” said education secretary Rina Ray. She has written to National Commission for Protection of Child Rights and Delhi Commission for Women(DCW) asking them to ensure the advertisement is withdrawn and also a public apology is issued by the insurance firm on all channels.
She should stick to her core competency and responsibility: running schools properly. Leave social change to society.
>>My notice to cancel all my accounts with you.
Good move.
M. Nam
hey guys
i just saw the ad, and i couldnt find them saying anywhere that its a girl
am i missing something??
cause according to me they just referring to kids as burdens, which is way better
Another point, stay-at-home moms work too, or are you saying that no work goes into running a house and taking care of the children? Or since their work doesn't generate an income it is worthless?
Also, I have seen as many women as men take care of their older parents even in very traditional families.
Sexism exists in the US too, however the sexism in India is much more blatant and far worse than anything here. Women are not considered a burden
to be taken care of by a male relative (father, husband, son) from cradle to death and they have more choices in who they date, get married to etc.etc. and more choices in general.
Ok I must have missed something, where did they say in the ad that the newborn was a girl?
Not true really: it depends on the attitude of the parents. I know a lower middle class family from a small town close to my place, who had two daughters and a son. They were smart enough not to discriminate between the kids and worked as hard to get their daughters an education as their son. The son was never v bright, but the girls both work with some Indian software firm now, and have been in the US for the last few years. Both are ardent savers and totally devoted to their parents, and they built their parents a house, bought them a car, and even paid for their own marriages. Meanwhile the son is still drifting. Their example has pretty much changed the attitude of the entire town and community towards girls. Incidentally, there's been some heartburn: one of the girls fell in love with a guy outside the community, and they had to agree to the marriage.
I just saw the ad, the line from what I can make out sounds like "dikhne mein to pyari hai, yeh khushiyan thodi bhari hain" which I would translate as though the joys seem sweet, they may have a financial burden. Which is why the ad shows a wedding, admission to MBA and birth of a child. I don't think the ad specifies that the child being shown is a girl. Please tell me if I am missing anything.
Yogi,
They don't call the child pyaari, the ad calls the khushiyan pyaari which has a whole different meaning.
To add to my previous comment, the joys that the add illustrates are graduate education, marriage and child birth all of which are shown to have another side which is monetary.
29 · Brown said
It doesn't sound like it was subliminal. ;)
This post was not meant to be a rant against them. I did all that "self-indulgent", earnest meandering in my post to illustrate just how much I loved ING. I don't think people who choose to join them or stay are misogynists, I just know that my reaction to this news was visceral and I had to take my business (and potentially the business of others I know) elsewhere. I was also interested in the fact that someone "official" was speaking out against the ad and demanding accountability.
I put the picture up because it's relevant to the post. ING has this strange little outpost in Philly, and there it is, in full color. If you look, you can see the pamphlets on the right and the orange ball on the left. I had never taken a consumer-bank-related picture before (nor since), so the bank was obviously extraordinary if I did. I didn't have any pictures of "just the cafe".
I hesitated to put this up and I knew I might be aiming my frustration at the wrong organization, but I also know that you're all smarter than I am and I'd find out way more about all parties involved via your comments. We all would. Sometimes, I surprise myself with how often I mutter, "let the market decide", and that's the other reason I blogged it. ING is free to do whatever they choose, no matter how deplorable their message is...I am also free to not support such an institution, even if my virtual account and occasional coffee have little to nothing to do with ING Vysya.
I've enjoyed reading comments like 8, 12 and 24. I didn't know about the Met Life ads and now I do. I didn't know where to go post-ING and now I do. There's a lot which can be discussed constructively, as all of you have already demonstrated. I'm glad mastervk posted the original article on the news tab. Beyond that, I think the discussion of social issues as depicted in advertising in India is relevant and interesting.
That and I thought some of you would want something, anything to replace the dwarf-crotch shot which still would have shown up on your screen all day today when you blew off work or school to mutiny; only a new post could fix that. :)
They don't call the child pyaari, the ad calls the khushiyan pyaari which has a whole different meaning.
They actually do:
Diknee me to pyaari hai, khusheeyan thodi bhari hai is what the you tube video says
They show a girl getting married, at the beginning of the ad,a girl getting into an MBA program etc,
if you want to keep denying the obvious be my guest. I am done with this discussion.
I am not denying anything, I know what you are getting at and I am not justifying the ad, all I am saying is the translation is not entirely accruate. I don't mean any offence so please don't drop out of the discussion on my account.
38 · spark said
if you are fluent in hindi/urdu, it's evident in the gender-specific use of "hai to pyaari", ie. she is cute but the burden is heavy. plus - the use of the wife, the student-daughter - is the consistent gender-positioning.
thanks spark and umber desi for confirming my doubt
as for yogi
the line is poetry so the subject is afterwards
as in
"it is beautiful to see but happiness is a little happy."
the word girl is not mentioned/ shown in the hospital instance
At the risk of getting away from the topic...you look absolutely lovely in that picture. Your profile pic doesn't do you justice....
sorry but that should be
"it is beautiful to see, but happiness is a little heavy"
Here is something else I found on the background behind the ad. http://lifexxinsurance.blogspot.com/2008/01/ing-vysya-life-insurances-new-tvc-takes.html
Well, ING website and the ING Vysya Life Insurance website(s) have a contact us form that lets you type out a message. I did that and even received a promising, your message will be responded to in 2 business days email. If nothing, I believe this post made me realize what the power of taking a stand can do.
45 · Yogi said
relax yaar. do some yoga.
I saw the ad and it is kind of ambiguous. Literally it translates to '(she) is good to see, but this happiness is somewhat heavy'. The 'she' here may refer to happiness, or it may refer to a girl child. But what does seeing happiness mean: its a weird metaphor at best. However, the idea that 'she' refers to the girl child does not sit v well with how the ad plays either. Also the second sequence in the ad shows the dad worrying about paying for the girl's MBA program, and I couldn't tell the sex of the baby in the third scene. So you could give them the benefit of doubt overall, depending on how activist you are feeling today ;).
I am sorry, if I sounded harsh. No offense taken. I have to drop out of this conversation because I have to get some work done.
Oh and I am no rashtrabhasha pandit so my translation could very well be short of 100% percent accurate but there is no doubt at least
in my mind that the ad refers to a girl child.
Though I find the ad troubling I have no problem with the ad being on air.
Have to go now.
Sakshi,
I think the happiness in the ad which is termed pyari is Birth of a child, marriage and addmission to MBA. Although the sequence of events may lead one to believe that the child being born may be female but they have left it vague.
Yogi,
Thanks for being gracious and lets wait to see how others feel about the ad once they have seen it.
Ing Vysa - is not just an insurance company in India, it is also a retail bank.
It was formed from a merger with one of the oldest private commercial banks in India.
I'm sure the line from ING will be that they are a separate company with a separate marketing
team and therefore they have no influence on that other company's advertisements.
Halliburton offshore in Dubai. Runs operations in Iran where it is illegal for U.S. companies to operate / do business. Perfectly legal and tax free is the response.
That guy I dated? He’s still with ING. And he loves little girls and hates the antiquated, ignorant, “daughters-as-burdens”-bullshit as much as I do, even though he’s Punjabi and they’re supposed to be the most son-loving brownies of them all, right? Ha. No. I don’t think he could love a nephew the way he adores that baby girl; if anyone even hinted that she was “loveable, but a burden” I think that person would soon have a few bruises to show for such stupidity.
I guess then if he was ever in Vancouver, alot of people would have bruises.
But I've never head anyone say:'khushiya dikhne me pyaari hai.'. They could say 'khushiya pyaari hai'. Its the 'dikhne me' part that makes it ambiguous.
my 2 cents: i think there is a genuine ambiguity with which noun/pronoun 'pyaari' is referring to - could be the joy or could be the woman/child. i am inclined to the give the ad agency and/or ING vysya benefit of the doubt in that case. the apparent reference, IMO, is to the 'khushiyan' (joys), but when the audience hears it more carefully, it sounds like a double-meaning device that refers to both the joys and the woman/child.
what is not-so-subtle as well as icky, is the 'consistent gender positioning' that khoofia points to in his comment.
--
tangential:
but, to link to an awesome award-winning ad here. in general, indian advertising has had some pretty fantastic creative direction (alyque padamsee, prahlad kakkar, piyush pandey, some ken ghosh, and many others who i totally cannot recall) and are consistently honored during major advertising awards.
54 · Yogi said
phrase of the day! nice touch there, yogi.
Wouldn't...the Delhi Government...know how to translate this? Or are they poor Hindi speakers?
59 · portmanteau said
what is not-so-subtle as well as icky, is the 'consistent gender positioning'
icky is the word.
i am not too hung up about crass ads. but this was really 'icky'.
Maybe my baseline is too low, but I have a grandmother who always asks: 'ladkiya engineer banke kya karegi. Hathoda chalayegi kya?'(why does a girl need to study engineering? How will they wield the hammer?'). People actually listened to her in my father's generation, so that all the girls have nice art degrees, even when they were good at math. Thankfully no one listens to her anymore. In that context this ad didn't shock me at all: I actually liked the father is willing to take a huge loan for the daughter's MBA program.
fathers being weighed down by the financial costs involved in bringing up their daughters
Last month here in Vancouver Lakhwinder Kahlon was so weighed down by having 3 daughters, that he killed his youngest of his 3 daughters, who was 2 years old. After it came out he was depressed cause he did not have a son.
Wamu is the one that pays the most right now, in case people are wondering. You can do everything online/ from home and also use their banks if needed.
Ooh and I dont knw how ING screwed up, normally their ad's are pretty smart.
62 · khoofia said
icky is the word. i am not too hung up about crass ads. but this was really 'icky'.
i was trying to put my finger on it - i get it now. to me the ickiness is not because of the gender positioning. one sees that in commercials all the time and i am inured to it. just not empathetic enough to summon up any genuine anger.
it's justthe thing about the dependency. that one has to be needy and dependent on another for the rest of the life. that's just plain 'icky' - like putting a hand down a drain and have crawlers swarm your hand that one squishes in a reflex and you pull out the hand in a mass of green goo only to find something with a back spine has gone through the nail and is crawling up the finger under the skin.
word of the day - icky.
My point was: if the ad only focused on the costs of arranging a daughter's wedding, I would have been really pissed. But they kind of balanced it out by showing the father paying for getting his daughter a professional education, which is a rather new idea in many parts of India. So in balance I gave them a pass.
Ain't no rashtrabhasha pundit here either, but I did study Hindi in school for nine years. Far be it from me to say that Indian advertising is free of sexist, colorist or other politically incorrect agenda, but in this instance the ad appears harmless to me.
Assuming the ad is the one shown on http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z7TKz5bIUsg , the text goes, "Dikhne mein to pyaari hai, yeh khushiyan thodi bhaari hain" which I would translate as "These occasions may look joyous indeed, but they are also fraught with (financial) burdens" (forgive the dorky word choice--I am trying my best to capture the sense of the text accurately). The occasions in question--South Indian (TamBrahm?) wedding, cosmopolitan Indian girl getting into b-school and the birth of a child--seem to support my translation. The adjective bhaari (heavy) applies to khushiyan (joyous occasions). Even if you cite just the newborn segment of the ad to support a sexist view of the translation, there is no implication that it's a girl. On an unrelated note, I like how Indian advertising these days has started to feature scenes from many parts of an astonishingly diverse country.
The Hindi text in the news report, however, "Hai To Pyaari Lekin Bojh Hai Bhari" unambiguously implies that a girl is to be viewed as a burden; as such it would be overtly sexist. Maybe the right honorable education secretary could try being more careful in the future before ascribing sexist subtext to an ad.
"sheepish Indian-perpetual-child thing and call my Mom for scrill"
r u not discriminating against indians with this comment?
69 · ekta said
Please. Refer to that somewhat recent NYT article about parents plunking down six-figure sums so beti can own vs rent in New York City. I'd dig up the URL but the inane nature of your comment does not merit such effort.
aww the new york ING cafe - That's my pre-interview hangout spot that I came to love so much. Free wireless, quiet spaces to re-read my resume for the 100th time, cheap drinks to give me energy (oh, and a clean bathroom!). And the pretty orange color and the perky employees. But I'm with you Anna - I'll find another pre-interview spot to hang out in. Sigh.
On another note, I wonder how many of us bay area natives still bank with BofA. I moved out to the east and still went back to open an account with them, for no other reason but that my parents used to bank there when I was growing up, it was my first account at 16, and so many of my friends were tellers. I'm with them for no other reason but the bay area memories.
Come on, Anna, you know better than to denigrate toilet paper. Especially my favorite kind.
Seahawks fan: is that photoshopped or actually available for purchase?
I think this is just an instance of unintentionally poor advertising. The ad very clearly states (bear with me non-Hindi speakers) "dikhnen mein to pyari hain" (plural) "yeh khushiyan phir bhi bharee hain" (plural). The translation someone else suggested earlier - "they may seem cute but they are a burden nonetheless" is too literal and out of context, in my opinion.
It's just that the choice of female models to coincide with the "...phir bhi bharee hain" leads to a very easily misinterpreted (and offensive) message. Just a case of really poor editing on the cutting floor. And I'm all for this advert being taken off the air, but because it unintentionally harms the brand more than it promotes it. But let's not accuse a company of such outright sexism so easily :)
And for all the folks complaining about ING's rates, try comparing the interest rates on ING's checking account with those of any other bank. And all deposits to ING Direct are FDIC insured. And no, I'm not paid to shill for them either. And I love starting sentences with and.
El SD,
My bad on FDIC insurance and ING, I had Etrade in mind. You are write about ING being a memmber of FDIC.
Anna, I wish I had a daughter like you....
Is it a coincidence that I caught the Flash version of this ad in the International Herald Tribune yesterday? (Let's see if I can dig it up.) So, it's not just an Indian market we're talking about here.
Also, the term toilet paper has already been reserved for our very own Times Picayune (the TP, as we fondly refer to it). Let's not confuse the rag-reading masses.
Oh come on, Anna... a pic of yours is hardly an eyesore... why even come up with reasons for posting it?
And yeah, I love my HSBCDirect account..
Personally, I prefer Hamara Farz.
79 · Divya said
the purists would say 'hamara farz' is urdu and a more appropriate transmogrificaiton in hindi would be 'mera kartavya'.
Anna
I don't typically respond to blogs but this topic has me stirred up-and is somewhat personal. I also worked in a bank as a teller and I loved the job-if I won the lotto I would go back to that job also. It also paid for me to go to college, I'm a ABD but my parents did NOT pay for all of college or graduate school, and thus I worked-and saved with B of A and with ING. I AM a C-level corporate woman now, who has more money in ING than I should-it makes my financial advisor squirm but I liked saving in ING, I liked the orange account, I liked the fact that I could move all over the country and this online bank took care of me and worked hard for my money. I did the same thing you did-transfered from BofA to ING every month and I told other people about it-I'm also that type of customer. But more than that, I am a daughter that made it her personal mission in life to stop being financially dependent on her parents at the age of 22. A goal that I accomplished, at the sacrifice of many other things in life mind you, but still one of my proudest accomplishments. It's ING that I went to when I needed my downpayment for my first house, it's ING that I went to when I bought my car-it's ING that I take my bonus money too. I grew up with this bank-and I will miss them. Don't get me wrong-I love my desi parents and they are very well off financially. My dad is a C-level executive in a great company but I don't ever want to rely on them for money, I want to be able to take care of them some day and I hope that they can come to me and I will always be able to provide for them.
Yes it might just be an add-yes it might be a play on words, and yes I know it is focused on Indians in India that might not see this as a big deal but ING let me down today, and at a very personal level.
Crest,
your comment alone makes me glad that I overcame my posting anxiety to put this up in the middle of the night. I spent over two hours staring at a Movable Type window, trying to untangle my feelings, so I could articulate how it felt like a punch in the gut to realize that my ING was the villain in this news story.
All the while, I thought people would not understand my irrational attachment to some bank and my overwhelming disappointment about an ad that wasn't even aired in America...but they, and especially you, do. I'm so very grateful you delurked. Thank you for your comment. You sound like one fierce and phenomenal woman. If I ever have a daughter, I hope she's as much as, if not twice the burden as you.
68 · Vishy said
Yes that is exactly right. I saw that ad several times because I thought I was missing something. It says "Khushiyan bhari hain" Hindi uses gender for all nouns, and Khushi (plural Khushiyan) is given the female gender. Sure, there is sexism, but the sexism is inherent in the Hindi language itself, not in the use of the Hindi language by the advertiser.
Reminds me of my professor (non-desi) who said he used to lift his little daughter called her “my precious Cadillac” – not out of love, but because that is what her existence had caused him.
He then went use it as an example to elaborate on economic cost Vs accounting cost, time value of money, etc
There were both men and women in the class, and the reaction to his statement was the same – everyone chuckled.
Yes, it was probably a co-incidence that he chose a girl as an example and not a boy, while ING probably did it deliberately – but ultimately the message was the same (and valid).
If the ad explicitly says that having a boy is good and having a girl is bad, shunning ING makes sense, but if it does not, then to act against ING this for this is taking political correctness waaaay too far, especially since there are a million ads in India (or even the superbowl for that matter) that are actually misogynist
Anna
thanks for your kind words. Ironically I also had a very nice Punjabi boyfriend that introduced me to the account-and just like you he also had more money than I and was able to save with his Orange account to buy a car and a house. He helped me get set up with ING and got me hooked-a loyal customer for life, or so I thought. He loves little girls, would never see them as a burden and I hope that after I send him the link to this blog will also switch accounts. Money is personal-and who you trust with it is huge. Loyalty is hard to come by in life and too bad for ING, they just lost a few loyal customers who trusted them with the one thing that they hold so very precious.
That's true, but I was hoping no one would bring that up. The purists suck.
I'm sorry, that's wrong. Grammatical gender does not equate to sexist social attitudes. This ad is sexist because of WHAT IT SHOWS AND IMPLIES, not because of the grammatical gender in its language. You could have done the same ad in a gender-free language and it would have been just as sexist. And personally I love how Hindi and Punjabi have gender in their grammars...makes for some really cool sentence constructions/structures.
I don't get this...what kinds of accounts were these? What kind of returns did people get? Why was ING able to magnify your money so much? And didn't you have hefty taxes on those gains?
Anna-
Perhaps you should take note of sunny's post. I concur.
88 · pongali said
I did take note of it, up-thread, the moment I got to my computer this mornig. Perhaps you missed it in your haste to agree with Sunny.
Not everyone is going to like every post. I hope you find others on SM which are better.
Amitabh, at least for me, ING actually made saving money fun, far more fun than BofA or Wells Fargo ever did. If you want to save or you like saving, that can be huge-- it can also combat the "why bother" mentality of a lot of people who think they don't make enough to save. Finally, the fact that it was a separate bank helped me, because I'd have to jump through a few hoops to get at that money and even then, it wasn't an instant transfer...and that lead me not unto temptation, i.e. more shoes. :)
86 · Amitabh said
Grammatical gender is sexist if it reinforces gender stereotypes, and that's what Hindi does.
What - you guys are talking about a measly 5%. Move your money to theAustralian banks - well over 7%.
Prove it. Give me an example. I disagree completely. Is saying 'women suck' any less mysogynistic in English (no grammatical gender) than in Hindi?
To address your example...so (one of) the words for happiness (or joy) is 'khushi' which is indeed a feminine word...and the plural is khushiyan, which is how you pluralise all feminine words ending in 'i'. How is labelling the abstract concept of happiness as a grammatically feminine word, being sexist??
Anyway, I think its cool that you have to adjust all the verbs and adjectives in a sentence to reflect the gender (and number) of the noun(s). Of course it makes it that much tougher for someone to learn the language too, which is a downside.
On the flip-side, there's a tv ad running on TV in India as well, I think it's Metlife but I"m not sure. But it shows an older guy washing his late model small car and his working-age daughter tells him that he should buy a big car. He says "where will the big car money come from?" Then his daughter hands him a check and he starts crying, the mother comes up and says "what's wrong?" The father replies that "our daughter has grown up." Then there's the shot of the daughter smiling with pride. India has enough censorship in place as well as enough crazy activists. Let the marketplace settle this one. ING already has competing ads, they'll suffer from their own ignorance.
I saw the ad and though I thought the ad was stupid, I did not think it was pointing to any gender bias because there was no mention that the baby was a girl. But then I showed that to my wife and her immediate reaction was that 'it is derogatory'. I think it is very easy to assume that it is a girl child - the ad is just a few seconds and one doesn't get time for the analysis that some of us have done here about the implied meaning or not (I had read the comments before watching the ad; my wife didn't know anything about the article and comments).
My conclusion - the outrage against the ad is correct.
I did receive a response from ING Vysya and they have pulled the ad off the air because their campaign is over. I have the email posted at my blog for details. Their stance is that they are referring to the happiness of life changing events and the burden of responsibility at each of those stages. I am willing to forgive them. :)
http://lakshmusings.wordpress.com/2008/02/15/thank-you-ing-vysya/
OT:
Sandeep,
The Mahabharata collection looks awesome, I used to collect Amar Chitra Kathas when I was growing up, where can I buy this set from?
Thanks
I just got back from a trip to India a couple of weeks back and I'd also seen the ING commercial that Anna mentioned and I'm so glad to know that I was not the only one who found it really sexist and derogatory towards women...the intersting thing is how it shows that a girl is a burden not only from the moment she is born (a part of the ad shows a young father's feet sinking as soon as he hears he has a baby girl), to the young girl who gets into a MBA program (her fathers car sinks) and wedding (the husband in this case as he's taking the saath pheras)..the ads all depict middle to upper middle class people in urban India, and in each case the woman in the ad, the daughter, wife, mother etc is the financial responsibility of the man in her life (father, husband). It's like no matter how educated or independant a woman is, she is still looked upon as a finacial liability and responsiblity of the man in her life...it's really sad when India has such a growing group of young women who are financially independant and living independantly and obviously this ad not only perpetuates stereotypes but alienates groups of women who don't fall into the "depending on daddy/husband/man in life" etc...
Wonderful post !! If someone calls my nieces as burdens, i too would give them a black eye for their thoughts !! losers, every single one of them !!!
97 · Yogi said
Sandeep,
The Mahabharata collection looks awesome, I used to collect Amar Chitra Kathas when I was growing up, where can I buy this set from?
Thanks
You can buy it from http://www.ack-media.com/
I've seen this ad. in Tamil, and don't remember that they say it's a girl baby. Anyways it's a stupid ad.
I would love to love an online savings account. But it's only for US citizens or permanent residents only (or so say the online application forms).
102 · melbourne desi said
It's never that tidy or simple. :)