Bisleri ad attracts censure from teachers, gets schooled on social media

Ad Campaigns
Apr 30, 2021 /
indiantelevision.com Team

Bisleri ad attracts censure from teachers, gets schooled on social media

Teachers' community says the commercial is offensive to their profession.

Bisleri

MUMBAI: It is to Bisleri’s credit that to basically every vendor or person on the street in India the company’s name is synonymous with drinking water! That’s the extent to which the brand has penetrated our psyches.

Nonetheless, the latest campaign by the bottled water seller has rendered itself unpalatable to some quarters! The teachers’ community of Rajasthan and Gujarat have come out in protest against the commercial released by Bisleri last week.

The film which shows a teacher teaching a classroom full of camels aims to humorously reinforce the Covid times messaging of “Contactless”. The students (the CG camels) ridicule the teacher for not knowing the importance of going contactless. The teacher then attempts to drink water from a pot (matka) by dipping his steel mug into it, which evokes more hysteria from his students. The oversmart camel then teases his masterji for being unaware about Bisleri’s contactless mineral water, bottled in hygienic conditions. He then tutors the teacher that “Samajhdaar bisleri peete hai” (smart people drink Bisleri) and tosses him a bottle of the drink.

Now the RSTA (Rajasthan Senior Teachers Association) and some other Teachers groups are up in arms, calling for a boycott of the ad claiming that it is derogatory to teachers, depicting the profession in a poor light.

Darshan Menaria, president, RSTA from Udaipur, in his tweet said, "We the teachers of India condemn Bisleri for its disgraceful comments about teachers... The preceptor #ShameonyouBisleri #BoycottBisleri."

Offence has mainly been taken to the fact that a camel is being portrayed as smarter than the teacher! So much so that, some of them have allegedly written to the Prime Minister from Jaipur, seeking intervention in the removal of the ad and action against the bottled water company.

The critiques of the film also said that it seeks to establish the intellectual superiority of choosing a bottled Bisleri water, as against potted water which is the norm in most parts of India, with its tagline “Samajhdaar bisleri peete hai”. That’s another thing that has not gone down well with people, who took to social media to register their objection saying  that “Bisleri has insulted teachers and the ancient Indian culture of drinking water from pots in the advertisement, which will not be tolerated. The company must withdraw the advertisement and apologize.”

The hashtags #BoycottBisleri , #WithdrawBisleriCamelSchoolAd and #boycottbisleriindia were trending on Twitter . And at last count, the You Tube release of the ad had garnered 20,000 dislikes.

Bisleri launched its 360-degree integrated campaign with its new theme- ‘Samajhdaar Bisleri Peete Hai’ earlier this month. The first commercial in the series, featuring the cheeky Camel Baadal with his rider, aimed to reinforce consumers’ trust and raise awareness on the difference between the original Bisleri and fake alternatives in the market. 

Conceptualised by 82.5 Communications, the second commercial in the series sought to make aware the consumer of the stringent production process that the brand goes through to ensure the highest standard of  safety and purety. But the campaign seems to have run into rough weather, and it remains to be seen how the brand gets itself out of this Twitter storm. 

BISLERI INDIA
#SamajhdaarBisleriPeeteHai
#BoycottBisleri
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