The biggest taboos to avoid in your marketing campaign

As a country and as individuals, we are progressing and there is no doubt about that. We are growing as people and we are growing as a society. “Change is the only constant thing in life”, and we are accepting the changes, be it terms of how we think, how we perceive and also how we look at things. But there are still taboos in our society and the way they are portrayed in front of the media in terms of marketing and advertising is not appreciated. We have come a long way and there is still a long way to go. We need to the way things are showcased and we need to break those social norms and chains for the betterment of the society.

Let’s start with the most basic one, the demand for fair skin. When will we ever get over it? As a country that is known for being different and accepting different castes and religions and living peacefully, we tend to forget that we need to accept color and not differentiate between it. We learn from what we see, and the way these fairness creams are advertised and marketed is something that we should be ashamed about. Color doesn’t identify a human, humanity does. This is such a big and ruthless taboo and people are forced to believe it. It is marked as if, a brown girl will not get a good life partner or a brown boy will not get a good job. It creates an unrealistic standard of beauty which is not appreciated. No one is born ugly, we just live in a judgemental society and this needs to stop.

There is another taboo which has been going around for a while, which is “men don’t cry” which was broken by an advertisement by “VogueEmpower” which was called “Ladke rote nahi”. It was a domestic violence advertisement and showed how people react to men crying. It is so unfair and so unreal as well. Human emotions are not gender-based, they don not occur according to gender. This is such a taboo and needs to be shattered. The advertisement by Vogue received a lot of applause and was accepted, showing that we, as a society are ready for change and the marketing and advertising should be too.

Menstrual products are something that are not marketed or advertised properly till date which is something that needs to change. Periods is not a problem, it’s natural and needs to accepted. Things like “Unn dino ke liye” is often referred while talking about periods. It was a taboo and continues to be so. It is important for the marketers and advertisers to talk about it openly as it is not something that needs to be hidden. 

These are some of the taboos that need to be avoided while marketing. These products are all marketed in a very negative light which kills the entire purpose. The society is ready to change and is waiting with open arms, so what are you waiting for then?