ad analysis surf excel

Assignment No 1 Advertisement analysis “SURF EXCEL: Daag acche hain” Promotion Management

Submitted to Mr. Deependra Tondon Course Instructor Promotion Management

Submitted by Rajeshwor Devkota MBA Term IV

8th June 2013 Ace Institute of Management Sinamangal, Kathmandu

The TV commercial I choose to analyze is of detergent “surf excel”. “Surf excel” is one of the products of Unilever under premium fabric wash category. The term “SURF” has been a synonymous to detergent. It is one of the most popular detergent brands available almost in every store in the market. Below is the link to the selected commercial for “surf excel” in YouTube. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2z2b8NDBzjc The advertisement opens with a shot of two children on their way home from school. When the little girl falls into a puddle, dirtying herself, she starts howling. That’s when her protective brother rises to the occasion, determined to seek revenge. He bravely dives into the puddle and begins to pound it left, right and centre, threatening it and demanding that it apologize to his sister. After wrestling with the puddle for a while, he emerges all muddy and stained, proudly declaring, “Sorry bola (The puddle said it was sorry).” They continue walking home after the brother ‘warns’ the puddle not to do it again. This is when the pack shot comes into focus for the first time, and the female voiceover goes on to explain that if a person grows with an experience, then the resultant dirt is good. She concludes, “Surf Excel: Daag Achche Hain.” The above ad is trying to commodify the need of clean clothes. The ad uses underlying psychology of add vitality to life to reach it’s consumers. This add is a very good example of how adding a little emotion and sentiment in ad making get viewers emotionally connected. The advertisement is based on sentimental value. It depicts two school children relating to structure of normal household and family and relates it to detergent and shows how it removes the stain. 2|Page

The advertisement uses an emotional appeal and peripheral route of persuasion. It has depicted the relationship between brother and his sister in a beautiful way. The advertisement uses the Indian culture of brother being protective towards his sister. It has a different take on the stains, it addresses that if anything comes out nice of dirt then dirt are nice. The advertisement is defining and addressing appropriate target market – general household. The advertisement mainly focuses on upper middle class housewives having kids and who have the necessity of cleaning clothes 3-5 times in a week as the target group. The advertisement target the children through tagline “daag acche hain “(dirt is good) - the philosophy behind is that children are the best influencers for any family’s buying decision. This was done keeping in mind that a major part of dirty laundry comprises of children’s clothes. This ad says that you go play in dirt and we will be there to take care of the stains. This advertisement also focuses on the fact that the children are innocent, they do commit many mistakes but those mistakes are how they learn. The advertisement also focus on giving out the message that person grows with an experience .That little moment, when the boy protected his sister and took revenge showed that the boy was growing up. Just the simple idea of a kid emulating adult behavior and pacifying his little sister has been brought out in such an endearing manner that even parents wouldn’t mind their kids getting dirty, if they are growing with the experience. The advertisement also shows a moment where children really want to grow fast and act as an adult. The advertisement can easily relate to everyone because it shows Innocent love and bonding between brother and sister and forces to recall our childhood and bring out smile on our faces. It is the fear of dirt that stops parents from allowing their kids to enjoy such fun experiences. The fact is that parents want such experiences for their kids, but without worrying about the stain factor. After watching this ad parent will probably not worry about the stains and let the children enjoy their childhood and grow by experiencing different aspects of life. The parents will be assured that the solution for their problem will be taken care by the product “surf excel”. The advertisement is simple, easy to relate to the product and has a lasting impression. 3|Page

My take on this particular ad is that the ad is gender biased and gender stereotype. It features boys as dirty, naughty, rowdy, intelligent and cute making them appear even more desirable to parents. In context of south Asian countries where the boy child is preferred to girl child the ad could have also used to convey a message that the girl child is equally capable as boys. If I had an opportunity to reconstruct this ad I would change the characters, the role played by the boy could be given to girl. The main theme remaining same the older sister protecting the little brother would have given the ad new height. This could have also been used as a platform to address the issue of women empowerment.

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