“Speaking the international language”: a transnational history of the Indian advertising industry, 1955-1969

Das, Susmita

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https://hdl.handle.net/2142/115929 Copy

Description

Title

“Speaking the international language”: a transnational history of the Indian advertising industry, 1955-1969

Author(s)

Das, Susmita

Issue Date

2022-07-13

Director of Research (if dissertation) or Advisor (if thesis)

Ciafone, Amanda

Doctoral Committee Chair(s)

Ciafone, Amanda

Committee Member(s)

• Stole, Inger
• McCarthy, Cameron
• Bhattacharya-Mehta, Rini

Department of Study

Inst of Communications Rsch

Discipline

Communications and Media

Degree Granting Institution

University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign

Degree Name

Ph.D.

Degree Level

Dissertation

Keyword(s)

• advertising history
• business history
• indian advertising
• transnational advertising agencies
• multinational corporations
• global business
• business services
• India
• Cold War
• socialism
• capitalism
• political economy
• cultural studies
• postcolonial theory

Abstract

This project traces the transnational development of Indian advertising industry between 1955 and 1969. The dissertation posits that the Indian advertising industry developed and consolidated as a response to, and accommodation of, the transnationalization of the Euro-western advertising industry around the world. This transnationalization comprised of two intertwined processes -- internationalization and indigenization -- that brought about the Indian advertising industry’s development mid-century. Chapter 1 “Worlding the World System” introduces the transnational advertising agency system (TNAA system) as one that exported a standard set of advertising agency practices in developing economies around the world to universalize advertising as a business, industry, and profession. Chapter 2 “Going International” elaborates the corporate expansion, entry, and control strategies of Euro-West multinational advertising agencies in national economies, with a focus on India. Chapter 3 “Becoming Indian” explores the role of state intervention in the indigenization of U.S-based TNAA, J Walter Thompson-India. Chapter 4 “Waging Wars” examines a broader process of capitalist transformation of the Indian advertising industry between the Sino-Indian war (1962) and Indo-Pakistan war (1965). This dissertation includes a range of primary sources from corporate archives of multinational advertising agencies, trade publications (US, UK, and India), books and speeches of advertising educators, and autobiographies and biographies of Indian advertising professionals of this era. This project set during the 1950s and 1960s explains how the development of the Indian advertising industry in this period impacted the commercialization of broadcasting with a view to trace the lesser known origins and historical actors of capitalist media development in socialist India.

Graduation Semester

2022-08

Type of Resource

Thesis

Copyright and License Information

Copyright 2022 Susmita Das

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