Iconic Ads: Super Rin – Safedi Ki Chamkar Zyada

In the 70s, Unilever had a detergent bar that had managed to gain some success in South Africa. They used the same economy plank in India – ‘If you wash with the detergent bar you save money’ and it flopped & India was the largest washing market.

Alyque Padamsee told Unilever that Indians are looking for washing soaps that provide whiteness. The standard colour was white and many Indians wore white clothes like kurta, dhotis etc.

The Levers team in India did not accept this and this argument went up to the international team (when the local marketing director Webb had gone on leave!) who finally agreed to Padamsee as they feel they had very little to lose.

Padamsee asked all his copywriters to visualize whiteness in different ways and come up with slogans. From the 100+ slogans, he selected one by Cossy Rosario. ‘Whitening strikes with Rin’ The analogy – whitening with lightning worked well.

But the product manager had a problem because lightning killed people! Without paying much attention to the logic, Lintas went ahead tweaking the line to ‘ strikes again and again with Rin’ as the more you wash, the whiter the clothes became. “Safedi ki chamkaar, bar bar, lagatar”

This made Rin an iconic brand and the most profitable one too.

In the 80s, Rin advertising moved up and shifted from simple functional benefits to creating emotional reasons. The proposition remained the same – superior whiteness. The tone became more emotional (envy). TVCs showed non-Rin users jealousy of Rin’s users’ white outfits and a visual image of off-white clothes being zapped by Rin’s whiteness.

The advertising showed the spirit of competition and jealousy with the famous line “Bhala uski sari meri sari se safed kaise?” If my sari is not as white as someone else’s, there is something wrong!