Marico’s Zatak Deo
Ad Agency: Taproot India
Almost all of us have heard about the lawsuit a
consumer filed against a certain brand of deodorants which have perennially
shown in their ads that through the usage of their product, the fairer sex will
get attracted even to the most ordinary looking men! The consumer claimed that
no such thing had happened in the entire span of so many years when he had used
the product! Talk about taking the ad too seriously, but that has been the
trend that almost all deodorant companies have used since time immemorial!
Forget deos, everything now uses seduction,
desire and sex to sell itself. From watches, underwear, apparels, fruit drinks
and even chocolate! Finally and ever so finally, Marico’s Zatak Deo has broken
the trend and has now come out with the refreshingly new, “Har attack ka jawaab
Zatak!” campaign. This campaign was strategically rolled out during the latter half of the
IPL season, almost at the end, as the viewership reaches an all time high
in that phase. I have seen only a couple of ads from this campaign and was
impressed by this courageous attempt.
These ads are not the kinds that will leave you
in awe and in fact they are not even logically possible, but they bring out a
new set of attribute that the user can associate with: Confidence! This product
is probably targeted to a young Indian man who wants to achieve something in
life and make a name for him! Whether it is in an office setting or auditioning
for a reality show, confidence is something that an aspirational young man is
looking for. Despite the fact that our country is the homecoming for “Diljale
aashiq”, the youth of today has more in mind than just running after girls or
make girls run after them.
Anant Dutt Bharadwaj, an Accenture employee feels
that the attempt to break the age long theme is bold but is a very feeble one.
He says, “The ads seem immature and the attempt at humor is lost on the viewer!
The tagline is catchy though and maybe the next campaign would be a stronger one!”
One thing that this campaign doesn’t do is show
woman and her character in bad light. Most of the deo ads show women as super
horny creatures who can be sexually aroused simply by smelling good, thus
giving men a false pretence that a woman can be easily readied for sexual
pleasure; that a woman loses control and is ready to break all boundaries just
to be with a guy who smells good! Sounds utterly rubbish, doesn’t it? Yet the
ads have been on these lines for ages!
Ajeytaa Agarwal, management trainee at HUL says,
“Ever since Axe released its campaign, the entire category communication has
been on similar lines. So such ads like that of Zatak are indeed refreshing
when they speak a different language. However, I feel the execution could have
been better! As a matter of fact, I get irritated as soon as the monologue
starts and feel like switching the channel!”
Zatak has planned to launch the deodorant in
this campaign in four variants – Striker, Challenger, Gambler and Avenger! The
names, as you can see, seem to be reflecting the ideology that the brand is
planning to follow. I do not know how successful this campaign has been or will
be for Zatak but it surely brings a completely new dimension that the deo
brands can foray into. Hopefully the other brands will follow suit and show us
more meaningful ads with less seduction. :P
Here are a few ads from this campaign:
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