This TikTok video puns on an older Vim ad...

WhatsApp groups are an interesting place to be. The following TikTok video was shared on one such WhatsApp group, and we noticed the reference to an older Vim ad...

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The reference was to an older ad that claimed that Vim harnessed the power of a 100 lemons. The ad by Lowe Lintas was shot in 2014 and featured actor Ram Kapoor. The claim made in this commercial was that Vim helped clean dishes better because the power of the lemons helped get rid of grease and any residual smell.

In an older story, Balki (R. Balakrishnan), former group chairman of Mullen Lowe Lintas, commented on Vim's advertising style - "In some ways, there is an exact parallel to Surf Excel's advertising. Of course, unlike Surf Excel, which was all about ‘testimonial advertising', Vim's advertising was about vivid demonstrations." Demonstrations of how Vim scours the best has been an integral part of their communications.

"We believe we had achieved the maximum from vivid demonstrations," Balki explains. "We had shown a restaurant owner admitting that Vim was superior - that is an ultimate. How much more can you do with vivid demonstrations? So we had to move on to something that symbolized ease of wash on the toughest of stains."

It's interesting to note that former SBI CMO Dinesh Menon was partly responsible for building Vim's brand image to what it is today. In the ad world, Menon started out as an account supervisor at JWT back in 1998 where he was responsible for brand development and marketing communications for Blowplast Industries (VIP), Star Plus, Star News and Standard Chartered Bank. When Menon moved to Lowe Lintas as senior brand services director in 2000, that was the time when he worked extensively on Unilever brands (HHC category) in brand development that eventually helped transform Vim dish wash to being classified as a power brand at Unilever.