Advertising Trend
AFTER 3 DECADES,
ICONIC WATERFALL
GIRL RETURNS!!
Where did she vanish? Why? Reason for return in 2015?
MONOJIT LAHIRI lets it all hang out …!
T
heatre dada & Ad Guru veteran Alyque Padamsee
is mighty amused – and thrilled – at the return
of the Liril – Waterfall babe. After all, the ad &
TVC was his creation and the thespian needed
no nudging to get into flashback mode. “I think it was
1975 – God, 40 years have passed and I still feel like 18
till I did?! – when Hindustan Levers wanted to promote
Liril as a freshness soap in an engaging way in the fiercely
competitive soap market. I was CEO of Lintas and me &
my team immediately went into Research mode. Insights
indicated that the urban middle class Indian women had
hardly any time to herself, caught up as she was in zillions
of chores & duties relating to housework, children, in-laws
& social obligations and the only time – very precious &
private – that she called her own was when she was having
a bath. That was her fantasy time … and what did she
dream of? It varied from superstar Amitabh Bachchan
whisking her off on his white horse to somewhere over
the rainbow, to other impossibly escapist desires … but
the common refrain was – Liberation! Freedom!” So
Padamsee, in a flight of (inspired) imagination, translated
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this mood into a compellingly universally relatable visual – a
girl enjoying herself under a waterfall! The communication
of letting-go and embracing the moment with uninhibited
abandon impervious to the orchestration of a routine-led
world zoomed in … and the rest is history. “We were lucky
to get someone like Karen Lumel who fitted our vision,
full on. Attractive – without being distractingly beautiful or
stunning – she totally epitomised the sheer joy of living with
all the exuberance, energy, animation, enthusiasm, vivacity
and excitement of youth! So, suddenly, it wasn’t merely an
ad for a freshness soap … it was magic!” Padamsee adds
that the ad was a huge success both within the industry and
consumers, with market share rocketing to an unimaginable
14 percent! The Karen Lumel ad ran for over a decade
with fantastic success. She had over time, unfortunately
put on weight, so had to be replaced by others – Tara
Sharma, Preity Zinta – but that Waterfall ad was something
else, recalled to this day with total clarity by viewers of that
time. “Once I retired in 1995, the new regime & Levers
decided to replace it with something new saying it had done
time, outlived its utility and the new market-scape needed