This Amul ad is going viral for all the wrong reasons

An Amul advertisement showing a girl changing her playing habits to adapt with her kid brother has drawn flak from all quarters.

daCunha Communications, which makes outdoor ads for Gujarat Cooperative Milk Marketing Federation's (GCMMF's) Amul brand, is facing ire on social media as the film is being considered sexist and regressive.

Amul fifth digital film-‘Har Ghar Amul Ghar’-went live on September 19 and ever since is attracting criticism.

However, GCMMF has denied allegations of the film promoting gender bias.

So much so was the anger that Sanjay Tripathy, senior executive vice president and head of marketing, product, analytics, digital and ecommerce at HDFC Life, tagged Jayen Mehta, general manager for planning and marketing at GCMMF, on Facebook and wrote: "Stop this ad."

People also gave negative comments to the ad on YouTube.

The digital film shows a little girl decorating a room with dolls and she places a Barbie doll and Winnie-the-Pooh soft toy inside a baby cot. Enters the father with a newborn baby. He places the baby in the crib and replaces the Winnie and the Barbie with a Spiderman toy saying, "Bhai isse thodi na khelega?"

The father talks to the little girl who seems visibly upset as her efforts to greet the baby went futile.

Finally, when the girl says that she is disappointed as her baby brother won't be playing with her "dolls", the father starts teaching her to play cricket so that she can play with her brother.

Experts say the ad was irresponsible and was not progressive.

Prasad Challapalli, senior VP and head of iContract (part of Contract Advertising), wrote on Facebook: "The father rebuking the girl in the beginning was totally unnecessary. And insensitive in today's day and age of #BoyBrowsing -when girls get to decide what they want to do. End of the day, it does nothing for the brand except generate backlash."




(Image/Video: Indiatimes/YouTube)