Mass media as we understand it today took root with the establishment of the print media in the West in the 17th Century. The medium offered opportunities to reach a large and widespread audience simultaneously. It was the East India Company that brought the medium to India and to Madras that is Chennai.

Newspaper publishing started in Madras with the launch of a weekly, The Madras Courier, in 1785. The Spectator, founded in 1836, became the city’s first daily newspaper in 1853.

Tamil publishing made a significant beginning in 1881 with the weekly Swadesamitran, which later became the first Tamil daily.

From the very first newspaper, advertising was very much part of the contents of newspapers and magazines. But the pioneering personalities to make significant contributions to the advertising business were the legendary S.S. Vasan (of Gemini Film fame) and T. Sadasivam. Their imapct began in the 1930s. Vasan started Vasan Advertising Centre, canvassing advertisements for various newspapers and getting commissions from them. Moving on from there, he bought out Ananda Vikatan and also started Merry Magazine in English and brought in T. Sadasivam to get advertisements for that publications. Sadasivam had a flair for writing very persuasive direct mailers appealing for advertisements. It is said that thanks to Sadhasivam’s efforts the advertising income of Ananda Vikatan went up from Rs. 6,000 to Rs. 72,000 in six months. Sadasivam later left Ananda Vikatan to start Kalki magazine with ‘Kalki’ Krishnamurthy who had been the Editor of Ananda Vikatan.

Newspaper advertisements in those days were mostly for products like Keshavardhini hair oil, Asoka Betelnut Powder, Amrutanjan, Narasu’s Coffee, Binny’s, Westend Watch Co., Himalaya Snow and announcements of new film releases. Sadhasivam was responsible for many Britain-based firms advertising the products they marketed in India.

It was in the early 1930s that advertisements which were essentially classified ads started getting a new look with the introduction of visuals to support catchy text (‘copy’). Line drawings and half tone prints of human figures were used to make the advertisements more attractive.

One of the earliest full-fledged advertising agencies was started by P.S. Mani Aiyar in 1939. Aiyar began his advertising career by canvassing advertisements for Swadesamitran and The Hindu. It is said that he got 25% commission from these newspapers for the ads he got for them. Simpson’s and Spencer’s were two of his best known clients. He had innovative ideas and he hired artists to create advertisements with interesting visuals. He is supposed to have persuaded Simpson & Co, dealers of cars, to offer cars on hire purchase. A car costing Rs. 3,500 was available on a monthly instalment of Rs. 100!

Later, V.G. Panneerdas & Co, popularly known as VGP’s, made the hire purchase system popular for all types of consumer durables among middle class households, making extensive use of print and outdoor media.

The 1940s saw a number of local agencies being started. They included United India Publicity Company (UIPC) (1939), Eastern Advertising (1944), Elegant Publicities (1945), Federal Advertising and Criterion Publicities (1946). UIPC was perhaps the first among the Madras-based agencies to get accreditation from the Indian Newspaper Society (INS). D. J. Keymer & Co. was the only multinational agency (headquartered in Calcutta) to have a branch in Madras at the time. It was soon to be followed by F.D. Stewart’s, Grant Advertising (1954) with Lance Dane as Manager, and J. Walter Thompson (1955) with R.K. Swamy as Manager. Umesh Rao, who was working as art director with JWT Madras around this time, is credited with creating the famous drawing for the ‘Maharaja‘ mascot of Air India, conceived by Bobby Kooka of Air India.

Credit for introducing professionalism into the advertising scene in Madras must go to R.K. Swamy. He not only used research for the first time to develop effective advertising strategies but also came out with some very creative ads for his clients like TVS and T.I. Cycles. ‘Set your watch on the arrival of a TVS bus’; ‘You can trust TVS’; and ‘Hercules Cycle – your lifetime companion’ were the headlines of some of the famous ads he and his team created.

He quit JWT and started R.K. Swamy Associates in 1972. In addition to walking away with some prestigious clients of JWT Madras, he persuaded several large public sector undertakings to advertise, for the first time, so as to build better corporate images for themselves. Some of the ads that his agency created for BHEL, ONGC and SAIL were trailblazing efforts at the time.

Another legend, Mani (SR) Aiyar based in the Madras office of Bomas in the 1960s, was a hard core professional who made a significant contribution to the Madras advertising scene when he was in Madras.

Though the 1970s and 80s saw a steady growth of advertising business in Madras, it was during the late 1990s that Madras gained greater importance in the Indian world of advertising thanks to the influx of a number of new MNCs like Hyundai, Ford, Renault, BMW, Nokia, Citi Bank, Standard Chartered Bank and others. Even software giants like TCS and Infosys established large bases in Madras – all leading to increased advertising spend originating from Madras. It was also the time when a few local brands like Cavinkare, the well-known FMCG (fast moving consumer goods) group, were putting down roots in the marketing world and were getting ready to give a tough fight to the multinationals in the years to come.

Meanwhile, Madras had become the retail capital of India. Departmental stores like Spencer’s and retail chains like Vivek’s, which had their origins in Madras, inspired a whole lot of new groups to enter the retail chain field. New textile and jewellery showrooms like Chennai Silks, Pothy’s, RMKV’s, Saravana’s, Prince’s and Joy Alukka’s appeared on the scene dominated earlier by Nalli’s, Kumaran’s, Vummidi’s and Nathella’s. These new retailers splurged big on media advertising, even putting many of the leading FMCG brands to shame in terms of advertising spend.

The 1980s to 90s saw almost all leading multinational agencies opening their branches in Madras. Thanks to the efforts of some of the best creative minds of these agencies, the standard of advertising, especially print and TV advertising, went soaring. This was the period when advertising business in Chennai was at its peak..

Many local agencies started by executives and creative heads who left multinational ad agencies organisations to start on their own also contributed significantly to improve the standards and quality of advertising. One of the earliest was Gopulu, the well-known cartoonist with Ananda Vikatan, who teamed with Vimala to start an agency called ‘Adwave’ which created some interesting campaigns for the Madras-based Shriram group. Fountainhead, Insight, Rubicon and others not only created good advertisements which won awards but also helped to build brands.

Insight’s efforts for Solidaire TV and Rubicon building a national brand, ‘Color Plus’, a readymade garment unit operating from Ambattur, are well known case studies.

Thanks to the growth of television viewership in the 1990s, the importance of print media in the promotion of FMCG, Consumer Durables and other services started going down from early 2000. Today, the print media is dominated by advertisements from retailers (jewellery/textiles), real estate promoters, automobile companies and a whole lot of educational institutions. Consumer durable companies use the medium only for promoting their discount sales during festive season or for announcing new launches. The trend has definitely affected the volume of business from Madras for the print media.

(To be concluded)