Vim’s parody ad on dishwash for men causes stir, backlash

While many considered it a successful campaign, the company did receive mixed opinion from social media users.

In the ad, the protagonist is seen berating a man claiming to do household chores such as washing dishes. While some users across Twitter and Instagram criticized HUL’s advertisement, many others praised the campaign.

The company defended the ad saying it breaks gender stereotypes. Societal stereotypes, defining women only through chores such as caregiving and household tasks are bogging them down, it added.

To raise this issue, the firm launched the ‘limited edition product’ that was purportedly designed for men, but in reality the product is the same as the existing Vim liquid.

HUL’s executive director and vice president for home care, South Asia, Deepak Subramanian said the negative chatter around the campaign is something that the team had hoped would come as a part of the strategy. “The campaign was born more out of brand purpose and brand thought—Vim has been on a mission now to really drive this thought on how we can empower women more and give her an identity which is more than just her role in the kitchen.” “Household chores unfortunately always falls on the shoulders of the woman no matter which income strata we talk about. Covid, of course, brought about some changes and that was simply because there was no help and everything was at home. And we did see greater participation of men in cleaning chores. However, things have returned to the old normal,” he added.

For years, advertisers have followed the same narrative —often showing women in the kitchen, or as a primary caretaker of the child. However, as social mores change, brands have tried to capture the shift in how households behave. It isn’t the first time brands are trying to critique the gender divide existing in households. Rival P&G’s laundry brand Ariel, has been running the ‘Share the Load’ campaign for years to encourage men to participate in household chores.

Communications strategy consultant Karthik Srinivasan said the whole narrative of the ad was tonally different from its earlier campaigns, in which the company followed similar themes for its campaigns.

In 2020, it had taken out an advertisement with cricketer Virender Sehwag washing the dishes with a gel product to highlight that men need to or are doing more dishwashing and were participating in more household activities.

According to Srinivasan, by doing this kind of a campaign, HUL removes men altogether from the dialogue by mocking them for not doing enough and for bragging when they do very little. This campaign was conceived by Lowe Lintas, put out by media agency Mindshare and produced by MTV.