Surf Excel urges consumers to 'celebrate stains'

To take forward its 'Daag Acche Hain' brand proposition, Hindustan Unilever has rolled out an ad campaign for Surf Excel. Created by Lowe, the campaign addresses the values a child can demonstrate, in spite of the presence of tough stains.

Speaking to Campaign India, Arun Iyer, group creative director, Lowe said, "With this new campaign, we wanted to show how a child can demonstrate values through stains. If acquiring stains isn't a worry in the back of your mind, then you can completely be yourself and learn a lot of things in life. In this particular case, the child demonstrates the value of empathy and does not care about his clothes getting dirty."

Watch the TVC here:

A classroom full of small boys is having a lot of fun, due to the absence of the teacher. One boy, however, asks his classmate why the teacher is absent, when he learns that the teacher's dog passed away. The boy makes his way to the teacher's house where she is grieving for her pet. To cheer her up, he impersonates a dog complete with rolling over and fetching the ball. In the end, the boy does manage to cheer his teacher up. The VO then says, "If stains lead to something good, then surely, the stains too, are good."

Iyer says, that Surf Excel has been using a child to convey its core brand proposition, for quite sometime now. "In this ad campaign, what we thought was a particularly interesting aspect to explore, is that of a child dealing with death. The little boy ends up solving his teacher's problem just in the endearing, childlike way he can. Of course, Vinil Mathews of Footcandles Films has added a lot of value to the commercial, with his tiny attention to detail and finishing," he says.

Surf Excel highlights children in its campaigns, since they are the main 'stain-bringers', says Iyer.

Iyer says, that the washing powder category has been beaten to death with each product trying to have an edge over the others, by proving its superiority. "Surf Excel has refrained from all of that. In fact, we don't  aim to portray stains as something that needs to be battled with valiantly. Our campaigns tell consumers to celebrate stains, as it isn't difficult to get rid of them. With Surf Excel, stains come and stains go. So why not just be yourself and be free to do whatever you want to do?"

"I think looking for good within stains is a great positioning to have. It gives a child the confidence to explore whatever it is that he/she wants to, without a second thought about dirty clothes. More importantly, children and their mothers believe that after all, 'daag acche hain and one need not worry about them."

With the media mix mainly comprising TV and outdoor, the creative team that has worked on the campaign includes R. Balki, Arun Iyer, Hemant Chonkar and Ameya Kovale.

The campaign has been on air since 15 August.