SRK is not a Papa Material! Pepsodent Ad Review

You must have watched Pepsodent’s ad featuring Shah Rukh Khan as a father, who encourages his son to brush his teeth along with him. It is called “Pappu and Papa” campaign. 

Pepsodent is a Unilever brand; just like Surf detergent which features many commercials surrounding family and children. The idea I think is to make the brands part of the families, and hence command customer loyalty. Now this Pappu and Papa (P&P) Ad is unique in my opinion. Unique because of the irony in what they thought and what it appears to customers like me… 

Recently I bought a Pepsodent toothpaste and they gave me a free “comic book” with it. Guess the title! It was the same “Pappu and Papa”. Pappu is a teenage boy of around 12, and he goes accidently on a Chocolate Island with his Papa. Of course when you eat lots of chocolates you need toothpaste – and what a better choice than a Pepsodent? But what I couldn’t resist noticing was the graphic images in the comic book. It showed SRK as a father. The lean look; invisible six-pack inside a full sleeve v-neck t-shirt loosely hanging from the neck and shoulders, perhaps worn without a vest inside, the SRK’s shallow cheeks and eyes telling his advance age; hands waxed to remove traces of hair; it is a perfect recipe which comes with SRK now a days. Even in movies, SRK is never able to get into the skin of the character – no matter what the plot is and what kind of a character he is playing, all that the viewers see is the same SRK rather than a King Ashoka or a Squadron Leader Veer Pratap Singh. The same phenomenon is carried even in his ads. Somehow, this SRK doesn’t look like a caring natural dad of a 12 years old boy. But see the irony, the Unilever guys say that SRK was chosen because he was a caring father in his real life! 

Well, at least in India, a typical father doesn’t look like a SRK. On screen, SRK still plays the roles much younger than his self and even in his other commercial ads, SRK is seen flirting with ladies (much younger than his age), and his personality never matches up with a ‘papa’. 

Also, I think just to catch the phrase “Pappu and Papa”, they have kept the name of the child as “Pappu”, which is mostly used now with other connotations (like a victim of a prank, or to be made fun out of). Both Pappu and Papa are bad choices in my opinion – Pappu a bad choice for a name and Papa bad choice in the form of flirting and flaunting, lean and mean SRK. 

The Unilever wanted to send across the message that fathers should spend more time with their children to teach the lessons of hygiene, like daily brushing. I think even this simple message is lost because of the “star cast”. 

All I want to say to the ad-men is that screen life is different from real life. In real life, SRK may be a very good dad, but on screen he doesn’t live up to the character. A model with a personality fitting a genuine father would have been a much better choice. And if all they wanted was to bring SRK so that children could identity Pepsodent with a celebrity, then also I think a Hrithik or an Aamir, could have been a much better choice… 

- Rahul