very journalist seeks the perfect beginning for an article. KV Sridhar, the national creative director of the advertising agency, Leo Burnett, inadvertently gave us one for this Cover Story.

Sridhar was one of the numerous top marketing, advertising, and research executives we interviewed. Are Indian car buyers obsessed with mileage, we asked him. Why, for example, do they nitpick about fuel costs even when they spend a fortune on top-of-the-line models? What did Sridhar make of our evidence that even in cars that are priced over Rs 10 lakh, Indians actually pretend to save money on diesel even though petrol-driven vehicles clearly handle better? And what does that say about the nature of automobile advertising in India?... more