Clear like Ronaldo or Saad Khan?

Friday, 01. 29. 2010  –  Category: -, BrandWatch

Last year, when the Clear Shampoo of Unilever Pakistan planned a reality show for the marketing purposes of their product, a participant named Saad Khan died in the contest due to the criminal negligence of the authorities there at the shoot. The issue was taken over by the internet media that seriously did a lot to destroy the image of Unilever Pakistan. People even continued to boycott Unilever products. It should be remembered that Aarpix was the first source to break that news. We had vowed to continue the coverage but we had to stop it due to the pressure on the family of the victim. We’re still unsure of the aftermath and to avoid some trouble for the family of the victim, we decided to stop the coverage. However if the family ever wishes, we are always there to support and launch the campaign again.

It took many months for Unilever to come up with the new promotional campaign for their popular international brand Clear for Men. It was like a strategy to delay the next promotional campaign anticipating that people must have forgotten whatever happened with Saad Khan.

Talking about this new campaign, it seems like Unilever has learned its lesson and that is not to over rely on any outdated advertising agencies like MindShare. I am calling it outdated because they still seem to be n00b of the new media. Last year, when MindShare was suggesting the brand image building strategies to Unilever and they tried to do it through the conventional media, thus ignoring the new media, all of us witnessed how the new media (internet and social media) literally destroyed the image of Clear Shampoo when the story of Saad Khan was everywhere over the internet.

Unilever has realized that internet media is the force that can no longer be ignored. So with the launch of this new campaign “Clear like Ronaldo,”  Unilever utilized both the conventional and the new media for re-building the brand image. Advertisements on YouTube, Facebook, Adwords, Social Media Marketing through Facebook, Twitter, and the launch of ClearLikeRonaldo.com the examples of it.

And now coming to reviewing this campaign particularly, I’d say it’s attractive especially the ad; Ronaldo is equally popular among the Pakistani boys so it seems like this celebrity appeal ad has just worked for them.  And the new media and social media marketing is what I have already mentioned above. So I’d rate this campaign as 7 out of 10

Tags: clear like ronaldo, clear pakistan, clear shampoo, clear shampoo pakistan, mindshare, saad khan, unilever, unilever pakistan