My Best Campaign: Ramakrishna Desiraju

Surf Excel hai na' has become part of popular lexicon

Why it is my best campaign
The campaign is ‘Surf Excel hai na’. However, neither did I write ‘Surf Excel hai na’, nor did I work on the campaign that launched the line. I merely ran a lap as part of the relay. All I can claim credit for is that I did not drop the baton and that I handed it over to the next runner well ahead of the formidable competition. Ariel was seen as the tougher detergent but the chink in its armour was that it wasn’t probably very good for the fabric. Surf Excel wanted to retain its ‘softer’ halo. Iron hands in velvet gloves.

 

My favourite ad never ran. We called it the ‘Average Indian Family’. It spoke about how they had five-and-a-half members, seven-and-a-quarter trousers, 12.7 saris, ate three-and-a-half chapatis, and got nine-and-a-half stains a month. Thank goodness, ‘Surf Excel hai na’.

Then came a new benchmark for a good wash because of competitive pressures. We came up with a wonderful initiative to counter that. People would donate old clothes, we would wash them with Surf Excel and donate. We called it Clothesbank, and tied up with an NGO to go along with our tagline of bacchchon ke aasuon ke liye bhi Surf Excel hai na. Dipe Chatterjee, Vinod Moolacherry, Nomita and Shubir, Anand Sorapur, Shivi and many others added their special touches to make the campaign successful.

It was one of the classic advertising lines, which could be used with flexibility and topicality. It was ideal for a brand that depended on testimonials and washing machine manufacturers for support. The line could be used as a taunt, a reassurance, an apology, or a cover-up for indiscretions. There were all kinds of ways of ending an ad with ‘Surf Excel hai na’. Little wonder, half the creative people in the agency would poke their head into my cabin and suggest ideas for ads.

Brief to the agency
The client wanted to pull ahead of P&G’s Ariel in the premium detergent segment. The product form, a concentrate, was still relatively new and expensive. We had the daunting task of making customers believe that at about Rs 140 per kg, it was still good value — thanks to its great stain removing abilities. “But guys, don’t lose track of the softer side of the Surf heritage,” the client warned.

Problems and challenges
Ariel had the first-mover advantage in the category and was perceived to be mighty effective too. Surf Excel, because of its Surf legacy, was seen as a softer product. This was a bit of a problem as the battleground was stain removal.

Route chosen and why
Stain removal was the holy grail in the detergent wars in those days. And stains were (and are) such a rich springboard for stories, testimonials, and demonstrations. We did them all. The famous flying shirt that collected stains at every balcony it sailed into during its journey from the clothesline on the terrace to the ground below. Passing through the hands of the South Indian mami making pickles, the Parsi greasing his grandson’s bike, the young woman in the middle of her beauty treatment, and the uncle watering his potted plants. Till a passerby who picks up the gloriously stained shirt and asks the distraught owner of the shirt who is looking down from the terrace, ‘Surf Excel hai na?’

The other film had testimonials where women from all over India waxed eloquent about the remarkable stains they conquered — sofa covers with stains from greasy mustard oil-soaked heads, uniforms that ate more of the tiffin than the schoolchildren who carried them, and napkins from the Lakme beauty parlour subjected to innumerable lipstick, mascara, and make-up stains. There was the commercial shot at Mayo College, Ajmer, with all the classic boarding school imagery. And how even for the scions of maharajas and industrialists it was important to know whether, ‘Surf Excel hai na’. While we mostly did TV commercials (those were the days before 360 degrees became fashionable, and ambient media became a separate category in the award shows), we also did traditional point of sale, radio and some posters for places with high stain acquisition potential.

The outcome
Well, Surf Excel won the war. With a more campaignable and robust brand idea, it won the minds and hearts of the homemakers and garnered more market share too.

Will it work today?
It would. Stain-removal is coming back in vogue and the demos that some brands are using seriously lack imagination and originality. Surf Excel itself continues to do some clutter-breaking advertising with ‘Daag achhe hain’. But I miss the grease, lipstick, boot polish, chocolate, paint, ketchup, and other assorted stains — and the amusing ways in which they get on to clothes.

Client:HUL 
Brand:Surf Excel

Credits
Creative Agency: Lowe Lintas
Agency credits: R Balki, Dipe Chatterjee and Vinod Moolacherry 
Direction: Namita Roy Ghose, Subir Chatterjee, Anand Sorapur and Shivi

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Ramakrishna Desiraju
CEO, Cartwheel Creative Consultancy