UPDATE: Layer’r Shot has issued a response/apology today (June 6, 2022) at 1 pm. My note on the ‘so-called’ apology, at the end of this post.
(Note: The word is written as ‘s3x’ not because I’m feeling ‘shame shame puppy shame’. Given the number of times it appears in this write-up, the page is likely to be blocked by corporate firewalls. It has happened in the past too, so I don’t want to take any chances.)
That most brands of deodorants, body sprays, and perfumes in India use s3x as a creative device is no secret at all. Reason? As the famous phrase goes, ‘s3x sells’.
But using s3x as a creative device is not a crime. S3x is, after all, a human function. A mighty important function, at that.
The trouble starts when this device is misused. Or used inappropriately.
What is misuse?
A classic example is that of the now-infamous SetWet Zatak ad.
A woman dentist is shown to completely abandon logic, reasoning, and self-awareness due to… just a fragrance. The implication is clear – the fragrance is capable of making women lose themselves.
There are several variations to this ad’s narrative and many of them are from Axe.
Is there a better way to use s3x in advertising? Of course. The starting point is the framing of s3x. A more appropriate, milder, and TV-friendly variant of s3x is ‘attraction’. Being attracted to the opposite s3x/another person is as natural as s3x.
Wildstone’s ‘Kunal’ series is a good example.
There are no explicit suggestions about the fragrance’s prowess. It is implied very indirectly and no women are shown to be losing their senses over the fragrance either.
Seagram’s Men Will Be Men series is another good example (see all the ads on Twitter by clicking on the date-time stamp).
What they do is frame the narrative using the male point of view, and show actions by men when they are trying to, directly or indirectly, impress someone of the opposite s3x. The end goal may not be sex at all, it may just be to seem decent/better looking/interesting/attractive (etc.; and in most cases, it is only in their heads!) to the opposite s3x. But the actions are so basic and universal that they would naturally appeal to the product’s target group – men.
The same narrative has been used in many other ads too. Like this Spicejet ad, for instance:
Many of the actions in the Seagram’s series are also gender-agnostic, but since women have been historically conditioned (they are breaking that norm now, thankfully) to not express similar sentiments towards men, we see less of them even in ads.
For instance, this ad, which is part of Wildstone’s Kunal series, featuring Zarina Wahab, does precisely that.
Or this Fastrack ad!
In fact, when it comes to sex, the use of dual meaning is an oft-used narrative device. The second meaning is always s3x, invariably.
Here’s a classic example, from a condom brand no less, with the dual-meaning narrative making functional sense:
Where the use of sex as a creative device gets inappropriate is when the product has nothing whatsoever to s3x, and s3x is merely used to grab eyeballs.
Here’s an example – Aquawhite Red:
And another one – Aquawhite White!
Or this Snickers ad:
So, that’s misuse and inappropriate use. But when does an ad cross the line? ‘Taste’ is subjective, and what may be appropriate for one country may cease to be, in another country. But crossing the line is not just about subjectivity alone. There is another factor involved beyond taste.
When an ad stops being about s3x or attraction, tastefully done or not, and is actually about a crime.
And that’s where the 2 ads from Layer’r Shot fit in – they are both about a crime, even though the brand and its agency wrongly assumed that it is about s3x.
In the , 4 guys walk into a closed room to find a young couple sitting on the bed. One of them tells the boy in the bed, “Looks like you had a shot”. The other boy responds, “Yes, I did” even as the girl next to him seems visibly stunned. Then, another guy from the 4 who walked in says, “Now, it’s our turn” and walks towards the couple, only to move towards the table near the bed and pick up a bottle of Layer’r Shot, even as the girl lets out a visible and audible sigh of relief.
The , set in a departmental store aisle, features the same 4 guys, watching as a girl moves with her shopping trolley towards a shelf and bends down. One of the guys says, “Us 4. And there’s only 1?”. Another says, “So who will take the shot?” even as the girl, now alert, turns around, stunned and fearful. Then she notices where they are looking – the shelf that has only one Layer’r Shot.
There is a specific point in the ads where this becomes obvious beyond doubt – the scene where the women (only one, in both ads, as against 5 men/boys) hear something from one guy and look in obvious horror. The reason for the horror? What the guy was suggesting in a double-meaning/wink-nudge tone was not about sex, but about rape (the second meaning, within the ad, is a reference to the product – ‘Shot’). S3x is not a crime, but rape is.
For context, are there other ads that show a crime and have been banned?
Yes, ASCI banned this Pepperfry ad in late-2020, for instance:
No, it has nothing to do with s3x, but I’m adding this to showcase that this is actually about a crime, legally speaking.
The tone of the ad may be par for the course in cinema (called ‘dark humor’), but such movies (or TV shows) are meant to be consumed by relevant audiences, and not universally. The ad film is, of course, shown on TV, between programs where children may be consumers of the actions in the ad too.
If ASCI banned that Pepperfry ad, consider this ad from the US, for the insurance brand Ladder. This is straight out of Addams Family!
But the country-specific sensibilities are different, and what is acceptable in the US may not be (need not be) acceptable in India.
Compare these ads to the famous CRED Rahul Dravid ad. Dravid wasn’t advocating or performing a crime. You could call his actions ‘tasteless’ and ‘uncouth’, at best.
The irony is that the same Layer’r had actually made fun of the women-lose-their-sense trope of deo ads back in 2014, in an ad featuring actor Imran Khan!
The brand’s new ad is a monumental fall in standards and a gigantic misstep.
The most obvious—and baffling—question that comes to my/anyone’s mind is this: did no one on the client or agency side question this premise before it was approved for shooting?
One potential answer to that comes from the fact that, according to Afaqs, this was made by the brand’s in-house creative team. That could probably explain if the idea got some feedback from someone not associated with the brand itself, and from someone/a team that has experience in marketing communications.
Still, it doesn’t need experience in marketing communications to deduce that making an ad that hides a joke about rape is a horrendously bad idea; it only requires the level of common sense of a normal, functioning adult.
That a script like this passed many eyes at Adjavis Ventures, the parent company of Layer’r, and did not raise any red flags is a travesty.
Layer’r locking their Twitter handle amidst raising condemnation is another. What they should ideally be doing is issue a clearly worded, unconditional apology for the sorry work they have produced.
And such an apology should be published as close to the burst of media mentions so that the brand’s apology is carried in the same pieces. If they do it later, then this brings the brand all over into the media highlight afresh.
The only word we see from Adjavis right now is in The Times of India, yesterday: “Devendra Patel, founder of Adjavis Venture Ltd, which owns Layer’r Shot brand, meanwhile, claimed he was caught unawares about controversy or the even the complaint filed by DCW as he was travelling for two days.”
Meanwhile, whether Adjavis received any communication or not, the whole world has descended on their ad, and this includes India’s Information & Broadcasting Ministry and Advertising Standards Council of India (ASCI).
A simple lesson for brands, brand teams, and agency teams from this episode is this: please designate at least a couple of people in your team as official ‘Devil’s Advocates’ (make sure you include at least one woman in this team – you may call them ‘Contra Voice Team’ if that makes it more palatable in a corporate environment) and give them unlimited freedom to question and counter-question creative ideas.
It should be their mandate to poke holes, no matter how inconsequential it may seem to you, in any and every creative thought. Talk through those questions and holes to see if you are able to justify the creative thought. This is the most basic rigor you can put your ideas through given the amount of money you are going to spend in making sure that a lot of people see the ideas coming to life.
But beyond money, you would also be putting something even more valuable on display – your company’s reputation.
Layer’r Shot has unlocked its Twitter handle and has offered an ‘apology’ (also shared on their Facebook and Instagram handles).
Like the 2 ads in question (produced by the in-house creative team), I assume this note was also prepared by the in-house communications team at Adjavis Ventures. Because this is the textbook example of a badly framed response to a crisis.
What ‘due and mandatory’ approval are they referring to? There is no pre-clearance agency for advertisements in India.
The ASCI (Advertising Standards Council Of India) only offers a self-regulation guideline. And only after an ad is released, can people complain to ASCI, after which they make a decision.
It’s possible that the Government-run Doordarshan may have a pre-clearance board to vet advertisements, but I’m not sure if this ad was aired in Doordarshan. Also, if ads are aired before movies in a cinema theater, that requires CBFC certification and hence is pre-checked. If Adjavis is referring to that possibility, then they are actually dragging the Censor Board for passing their miserable piece of ‘creativity’ – this seems highly unlikely.
The ad was not ‘wrongly perceived by some’. There are 2 very obvious meanings implied in both the ads – one was about Layer’r Shot. The other one is not ‘some’ people’s ‘perception’. It was entirely intended. That’s the very nature of a dual-meaning narrative – both meanings are entirely pre-planned and intended to attract attention.
The ads did not cause ‘rage amongst individuals & several communities’!! Sheesh, did a 10-year-old write this note, Adjavis? Hasn’t this note been given enough importance to go through a professional public relations agency?
Here’s an alternative version.
We, at Adjavis Ventures, sincerely apologize for the 2 recent advertisements for our product Layer’r Shot.
They were in very poor taste, not thought-through, and given the present-day headlines, highly inappropriate and creepy.
As soon as we came to know of the feedback via social media, ASCI, and the Ministry of Information & Broadcasting, we volunteered to remove the airing of the advertisement from all media channels.
We have also instituted an internal audit of how this advertisement was conceived, approved, and produced since the internal checks would have caught the ads’ issues at every step of the process.
We have been in the business of fragrances for over 9 years and have even produced several advertisements, including one where we consciously lampooned other deos that show women mindlessly falling for men only because of their perfume. We have failed in our internal rigor with these 2 ads and realize that we have to start from scratch if we were to do any better.