Devina Joshi
Advertising

ASCI clears complaint against Pril Liquid commercial

A complaint received by the ASCI targeted a Pril TVC, alleging that the ad makes an exaggerated claim of cleaning a dish with a single drop of Pril. That complaint has been annulled

The Advertising Standards Council of India (ASCI) has cleared a complaint received against Henkel India Ltd for a television commercial (TVC) for its liquid dish wash brand, Pril.

Pril Liquid’s advertisement shows a housewife grumbling to herself about having to clean a pile of dishes after a party. Just then, a Pril saleswoman enters her home and gives her the Pril One Drop Challenge. She asks the housewife what she will use to clean the dishes; she gives the obvious answer: a washing bar. The saleswoman urges her to use Pril, which can wash the dirt off a dish with a single drop and some water. Following a product shot and a voiceover on how Pril is more effective than a washing bar, the housewife is shown beaming.

ASCI clears complaint against Pril Liquid commercial
A shot from the Pril ad
The ad was pulled up on a complaint that it was a ‘misleading advertisement’ at the Consumer Complaints Council (CCC) of the ASCI during the period, July-September 2007. Following this complaint, Henkel approached an independent testing laboratory, Italab, to have its claim verified.

As per this report, the claim in the advertisement for Pril Liquid Dishwash, ‘Each drop of Pril has active ingredients which remove grease better than the bar’, has been verified by Italab.

The test results indicate that stain, charred residue and oil in a frying vessel (used to fry potatoes, as suggested in the ad) were completely removed using one drop of Pril Liquid and a little water. The normal shine of the steel vessel was also restored after washing the vessel. Henkel India has shared the test report with the ASCI.

Post this report, the ASCI has dismissed the complaint and accepted Pril’s stance. “But the ASCI has offered a recommendation to show a scrubber in the next Pril ad in order to show the action of a drop of Pril washing away the dirt,” says Debashis Das, category manager, laundry and home care products, Henkel India. This recommendation is not mandatory.

Henkel India is among the few companies pulled up by the ASCI to have refuted the stance through an independent testing laboratory and to have also vindicated its claim.

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