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Currently work in advertising. Wannabe potter & Baileys brewer. Trying hard to figure out my new SLR, old guitar and how Raja lost his 4th leg.

Saturday, February 27, 2010

Chonka dene vaali safedi – Levers istyle


I love watching ads. And thankfully today a lot of ads are pretty enjoyable. More recently I liked the Max Newyork Life child’s plan where the kid has topped painting. I also caught this ad just once – Wildstone. On why men should not use women’s talcs. Swapped channels all evening trying to catch it again. But no such luck. Instead I chanced upon a Tide ad. No Rin ad. Yeah, Rin ad. Again and again. All evening. Evidently it’s a hit and run case, cause soon someone will have to give them a lesson or two on copyright/TM infringement etc.

About the ad. Well, it begins like any typical detergent ad. Woman A mentions to Woman B that she has bought Tide as it gives her khushboo and safedi. Suddenly a school bus appears and Woman B’s kid is wearing a white shirt that is whiter than Woman A (Tide user)’s kid. Woman A is thinking ‘bhala uski safedi meri safedi se safed kaisi’. Voice over goes on to explain: ‘Chonka dene waali safedi ho toh Rin ho’.

Good God. Whatever happened to detergent advertising. It had low standards to begin with and now it slumps to greater depths. I mean all detergents are busy making white whiter. The only catch phrase – safedi! What is the obsession with white? For a country ruled by whites for more than a century we should be white averse! But instead we want whiter clothes, whiter complexion and what else have you. And besides have lots of colours in our wardrobes. I probably have 2-3 white garments. The rest are all different colours, though largely black. Won’t the black ones feel left out if I bought a detergent specifically for the whites?

So coming back to the ad – I think its called Combat advertising or some such term where Rin is taking a potshot at Tide. And to my mind the ad will air full blast through this long weekend. By the time P&G wakes up and reacts or takes Levers to the cleaners, it will be a good week and by then the ad will have done its job. In this case, one-upmanship over Tide.

I’d like to see how this one shapes up. Not that it will bring great advertising to the fore. But I’m just curious to know how Tide will reclaim its platform. Which will now have to add – whiter than the white of Rin. So long.