The new Santoor baby ad…

There have been enough attempts by local brands to break into the baby toiletries category in India. Some time back, there was Marico who entered with Sparsh with a Soap and a massage Oil way back in 2004-05 and failed miserably. Wipro Consumer Care, who has been at the fringes so far with Wipro Baby Soft is attempting it now with Santoor Baby.

Here’s the ad…

Firstly, it totally perpetuates the beauty myth. Parents here want their kid to become a Doctor or an engineer. But this one want’s the baby to be Ms. Universe!

Secondly, in my view as a marketer, this was a lazy and plain bad attempt. Here’s why…

• Their benefits are not consistent between the ad and the pack, say’s for ‘being beautiful‘ you need ‘nourishment‘. The pack says ‘healthy glow‘.
• The RTB is milk cream (which is not shown) for ‘softness‘ , badam oil – for ‘moisturising‘ and kesar for ‘golden glow‘. Where do you get the Nourishment from is a wonder.
• Then there is another lazy claim thrown in – moisturises from within.
• The 3 words that come on screen are in english of which ‘milk cream’ is not shown being poured or written by the way.
• The sign off is, ‘New Santoor baby for delicate skin‘.

Finally, attention to detail! The supers & text are in English when the ad was shot in Telugu.

The person writing the concept crammed in as many ingredients and benefits as he could into the concept and then the brief. Once it went thru, he insisted that everything be shown in the ad. Net-net, large chunks hang by themselves and consumer makes out what he wants from what he remembers.

For me, the product too has it flaws. Haven’t physically seen the actual soap but from what I could make out from the ad, the soap is plain white.They show and call out kesar... and usually kesar soaps have specs of orange/yellow in them to signify this.

All in all, this product is a dud in the making.