Swineflu Scare (GODREJ PROTECKT)

On February 24, 2010 I happened to see half-flap ad of Godrej Protetekt in The Times of India, Mumbai. This was actually the first sheet of the newspaper which covers the first page of the paper, it is a vertical sheet; the purpose of this sheet is to carry a specially designed advertisement on both sides. The width of this sheet is slightly less than half of the width of the newspaper. I hope I have made myself clear, if not please take a look at the photo here and you will know what I am trying to explain.

The ad appears to be simple; one may not consider it to be uniquely creative. To my mind it is an effective ad since the message is conveyed quite directly without much fuss. The message here is:
You may need to protect yourself against infection by washing your hands but you may not be always able to do so. In situations like this if you use Godrej Protetekt you will be able to protect yourself against germs, after all it is not possible to carry your wash basin with you.



The ad continues to the other side of the page and explains everything pretty well. The photograph in the ad shows a young girl holding a wash basin with a helpless look on her face, another young girl in the centre looks carefree and enjoys her pani-puri which is being served by the vendor standing on the right. She appears to taunt the girl holding the wash basin; sticklers for hygiene are sometimes made fun of in real life by those do not care much about hygiene. The vendor has a business-as-usual expression on his face. The girl with the wash basin I suppose represents the target audience of this ad campaign who needs to be told about Godrej Protetekt.

If one analyses the ad a bit deeply one would wonder as to what use is Godrej Protetekt in situations like these in real life unless the vendor himself uses Godrej Protetekt to keep his hands germfree. If the vendor does not keep his hands germfree he is sure to contaminate the pani-puri, even if the consumer makes sure that her/his hands are germfree that will not kill the germs already present in the pani-puri. Perhaps the agency M/s R K Swamy BBDO could have thought of some other situation to be shown in the ad. But on second thoughts I don’t think lay consumers analyse ads in great detail to look for flaws, so what I have commented above may be quite inconsequential. On the whole I think the ad campaign is good especially these days with the swine flu scare.