Surf Excel company is a domestic company known for its washing powders and detergents. Surf Excel has much popularity in South Asian countries like India, Pakistan, and Bangladesh. However, in the past, the company has made many mistakes while running ad campaigns for promoting and launching its products in the market. Well, Surf Excel is a successful business, but you must learn from the mistakes that it made in the past and should not repeat them.
Religious Ads
Everyone who wants attention grabs it by encouraging the faith of the community. Similarly, in 2019, Surf Excel launched an ad campaign that received a lot of hate from both Muslim and Hindu communities, mainly from extremely religious people.
What was the ad?
It was the holy season, and a Muslim boy in white shalwar kameez was trying to save himself from Holi colors. A Hindu girl, expecting help from her friend, helped the Muslim boy avoid the colors by taking him on her cycle and safely dropping him at the mosque.
Why did Surf Excel company get hate?
If you watch Indian channels, you might have seen this ad. In this ad, Surf Excel was promoting humanity and love, but in reality, it turned out differently. Extreme Hindu religious people criticized it and called it “Love Jihad propaganda.”
As a result, many Hindu and some Muslim people boycotted Surf Excel. During the season of Holi, when there was a good chance for the company to sell its products in masses, the company ended up facing hate and criticism. The company didn’t realize the sensitivity of sparking religious issues.
Big and High-Priced Washing Powder Packets in Rural Areas
When Surf Excel launched its big washing powder packets in small towns and rural areas, they hoped they would have good sales. But their product didn’t perform well; nobody was buying it. This made the company’s directors think about why people were not buying their premium-quality washing powder.
The company sent a team to investigate the reason behind the failure of their product. When the members went to find out the reason, they asked locals and told them about their product.
Why did the product fail?
When they came to a woman, they showed her the washing powder packet and asked her about it. The woman replied that she knew about it. Then the members asked why she was not buying it. The woman told them that the washing powder packet was expensive and her husband’s salary was not enough. They couldn’t buy it even though it would last for six months; still, they couldn’t afford it in one month.
How did the company recover from its mistake?
Then the company’s directors understood that instead of launching a 5 kg packet, they should launch a 60-gram sachet. As a result, everyone in the rural areas started buying it. Even the watchmen used the 10 INR (0.11 cents) sachet to wash their clothes.
Making Ads Against Culture
Surf Excel made this mistake in Pakistan. In an ad, they used a punchline “Daag tou acha hota hai,” which means “Stains are good.” In Pakistan, most people are Muslim, and purity is a part of their culture. As a result, it created negativity among many Pakistani Muslims towards the Surf Excel company. Look how a small unseen mistake had a negative outcome on the company’s impression.
How did they solve this mistake?
In the next ad, Surf Excel came up with a new punchline, keeping in mind the need to fix the old mistake. The line was “Kisi ki madad karta hua wala daag tou acha hota hai,” which means “The stains we get while helping someone are good.” With this strategy, they were able to recover their mistake and increase their sales.
Ads Promoting Unnecessary Things
You might have seen washing powder ads where children are rolling and running in mud. The same was shown in Surf Excel ads, but here is the negative point — it encourages children to become dirty and live carelessly. When children think there is no problem in getting dirty, they become careless. As a result, parents become annoyed. Moreover, spilling food on clothes is also shown many times in the ads, which leads to promoting wastage of food.
Always Behind Their Competitors
In South Asia, Surf Excel always loses to its competitors like Ariel and Bonus. They provide premium quality products, but what if people don’t buy them? In South Asia, most of the population belongs to the middle class. Keeping this in mind, other brands use a main hook point in their advertisements — that their washing powder price is two times lower than other washing powder packets and they give 10% extra in 50-gram sachets. This hook catches people’s attention. While Surf Excel provides good quality, others sell excessively at affordable rates.
However, it’s not only about price. Competitors always try to produce something new in the market, such as liquid detergent, while Surf Excel adopted these ideas much later.
Using the Same for Different Cultures
Surf Excel uses the same ad scripts in different countries like India, Bangladesh, and Pakistan. The thing is, every country has its own culture, emotions, and values. It’s not obvious that every ad will get success in every street. It can have a negative outcome. For example, Pakistani culture is different, Indian culture is different, and Bangladeshi culture is different.
Conclusion
There are many mistakes Surf Excel has made in the past, but still, it is one of the most selling washing powder brands due to its premium quality products and creative as well as expensive advertisements. Success comes after failure, but only when you justify the reasons for your failure and correct them.
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