Why ads meant to cash in on a potentially viral moment require a long look

Soon after the Uttar Pradesh state board declared its Class X results last month, the 15-year-old girl who scored 98.5 per cent marks started trending  — unfortunately, more for her physical appearance than her academic achievement.

As internet trolls attacked her for her facial hair, a full-page advertisement by Gurugram-headquartered Bombay Shaving Company appeared on the front pages of some newspapers addressing her. “Dear xyz (name withheld), they are trolling your hair today, they’ll applaud your A.I.R. [all-India rank] tomorrow,” the ad read, in large font. A message, in much smaller font, on the right-hand corner, added, “We hope you never get bullied into using our razor.”
 

Bombay Shaving Company’s Founder and Chief Executive Officer, Shantanu Deshpande, also posted a picture of this ad on his LinkedIn page, describing it as “a simple message for an amazing young woman with such a bright future”.
 

Things soon went downhill. A number of people called out the company and accused it of “opportunist branding”, insensitivity, and violating the girl’s right to privacy. 
 

“Rather than focusing on highlighting the noteworthy achievement, the brand unknowingly contributed to the trolling culture,” says Shagun Gupta, a New Delhi-based brand strategist.
 

Navigating such situations can be challenging. In this case, it appears that the personal care and grooming company was so eager to align with the trend it may have overlooked how its full-page newspaper ad could be perceived, Gupta says.
 

Indeed, moment marketing — when a brand tries to cash in on a viral or potentially viral ‘moment’ – is a tricky space. Some brands, most notably Amul, have done it successfully for years. But many others have burned their fingers.

Missing the moment
 

Zomato Ad on World Environment Day (June 2023) showed actor Aditya Lakhia, who played the Dalit character Kachra in the film “Lagaan”, as items made of recycled waste. The National Commission for Scheduled Castes issued a notice to the restaurant aggregator

Bharat Matrimony’s Holi Ad (March 2023) featured a woman washing off Holi colours to reveal bruises on her face, aiming to convey a social message advocating for safer and more inclusive spaces for women. The ad was criticised for portraying a highly sensitive issue during a festival campaign
 

MakeMyTrip, during the Cricket World Cup (October 2023), in a full page print ad announced a discount offer for Pakistani cricket fans based on the number of runs their team lost by. It faced criticism for spoiling the sporting spirit
 

Dabur, during the festival season campaign (October 2021), launched an advertisement showing a same-sex couple celebrating the Hindu festival Karwa Chauth. FabIndia named its Diwali clothing collection as ‘Jashn-e-Riwaaz’.

Individual vs incident
 

It “can often lead to significant missteps if not executed carefully,” wrote Manisha Kapoor, CEO and secretary general of the Advertising Standards Council of India (Asci), in a LinkedIn post while taking note of the Bombay Shaving Company’s ad. 

It can get trickier when companies focus on the individual rather than the event.

Take the ad Fiitjee put out in March. Purportedly using the picture of one of its former students, Fiitjee claimed she could have scored 100 and not 99.99, had she remained with the coaching institute rather than opting for another one. It described the other coaching centre as “the evil institute from Kota (now in Delhi) with a history of suicides”.
 

This ad, too, invited a good deal of criticism.

Bombay Shaving Company and Fiitjee declined to comment when Business Standard contacted them.
 

“Social media platforms tend to show incidents that many people are talking about. It is easier for brands to be on top of them and use them,” says Bengaluru-based communication strategy consultant Karthik Srinivasan. “Usually, brands are cautious about using individuals who are trending, and prefer to use moments or incidents.”
 

Not just brands, organisations and agencies, too, sometimes end up stumped in the moment marketing game.
 

Roll back to 2017, when the Jaipur police invited Indian pacer Jasprit Bumrah’s displeasure. The police had used Bumrah’s infamous no-ball to Pakistan’s Fakhar Zaman during the final of the 2017 ICC Champions Trophy in an advertisement on road safety. “Don’t cross the line. You know it can be costly,” read its billboard featuring Bumrah’s overstepping, which was seen to have turned the match in Pakistan’s favour. The fast bowler was upset and took to Twitter (now X) to 

say so. The Jaipur police later offered an apology.

 

Legal landscape
 

The legal stakes are high. 
 

“Presumably, Bombay Shaving Company did not seek her permission for an ad that addressed the girl directly, and went on to use wordplay to insert the brand in the moment,” says Srinivasan. The better way, he says, is for brands to work with the individual officially.
 

Official is the route DSP Mutual Funds and Bajaj Allianz took to feature Sanjeev Shrivastva, better known as “Dancing Uncle” on the internet, in their ads.
 

Delhi-based lawyer Abhijat Bhardwaj says identities of organisations are legally protected through trademark and copyright, but in the case of individuals, it is a direct attack on the right to privacy accompanied with the right to live with dignity.
 

Back in 2022, Unacademy ended up using historian Manu S Pillai’s face in a "generic profile’ advertisement under the name of Sagar Chauhan. “Not the first time this is happening. Somewhat miffed that I have such a generic face, it gets lifted for all kinds of random advertisements,” Pillai had tweeted after the advertisement went viral.
 

In the case of celebrities, Bhardwaj adds, “The right to publicity derived from the right to privacy protects against the misappropriation of a person’s name, likeness, or other identity — such as nickname, pseudonym, voice, signature, likeness, or photograph — for commercial benefit.”

 

FOMO fiascos
 

The 15-year-old Class X topper from Uttar Pradesh, meanwhile, expressed a strong disinterest in publicity. “If I had scored just one-two marks less, I wouldn’t have gained this social media popularity and wouldn’t have faced such trolling,” she said in an interview to BBC.
 

Bombay Shaving Company’s Deshpande had, in his LinkedIn post, emphasised that their full-page ad was not meant to benefit the company. He said there was no QR code or other sales tactic involved, hence the ad was non-profit in nature. 
 

Mumbai-based cultural strategist and brand creative director Rupesh Kashyap disagrees with that argument. “Merely omitting a QR code does not necessarily signify a lack of intention to sell,” he says. “Rather than talking about the razor, they could have taken a higher ground by highlighting the importance of grooming, or taken the totally anti-confirmative beauty approach and done something that celebrates real beauty.”
 

Kashyap adds that the challenge with moment marketing is that it is driven by the FOMO (fear of missing out) culture. “In fact, it is not just about the ‘moment’, but the cause of it. If brands don't understand it well, chances are it'll misfire," he says.
 

Asci’s Kapoor agrees. Brands, she says, must exercise caution when incorporating real incidents or individuals into campaigns. “Without express consent, the advertisement can become exploitative or misleading.” 
 

Asci has intervened in some cases, such as when edtechs used images of or made references to known individuals without their permission. “These ads eventually had to be pulled down,” says Kapoor.

Moment marketing needs to be sensitively thought through and carefully executed. The rush to catch the fleeting moment is known to do more damage than good.

Watch out call
 

Baseline Ventures, a sports marketing, entertainment and brand licensing company, considered suing multiple brands for unauthorised use of the name and pictures of their client, PV Sindhu for marketing purposes. The brands put out a “congratulatory message” when she became the first Indian woman to win two Olympic medals in 2021
 

In another case, in 2018, Baseline Ventures sent notices to a few brands saying the social media posts congratulating their client cricketer Prithvi Shaw for his Test match debut century used creatives with Shaw’s name