City comes in support of controversial ad

An online war ensued with #SurfExcel on one end and #BoycottSurfExcel on the other end attempting to break down a promotional video released by Hindustan Unilever for Surf Excel, a detergent powder brand.

Even as users spoke out against the brand for their advertisement, youth in the city spoke up in support of the brand, citing the tweets against it “toxic.”

Perceiving this as an act of “love jihad” to influence Hindu girls to fall in love with Muslim men so that they can convert to Islam, hate tweets raged on the advertisement and pledged to stop using the detergent powder here on out.

However, tweets by many others called out the negativity, stating that “Surf Excel could clean dirty clothes but not dirty minds”, “our secularism is always under threat, even an innocent ad is viewed with such toxicity” and so on.

Meanwhile, DT Next spoke to youth to assess the mood in the city and they agreed that the video was straightforward and colourful with no hidden agenda.

Rohit Ramesh (25), marketing student, said, “As an advertiser myself, I think it’s a brilliant narrative. The argument that kids don’t see cultural divides is unrealistic - the fact is they do, yet choose to tackle it with warmth rather than animosity.”

“All the girl knew that the boy had to offer prayers in clean clothes and hatched up a plan to make that possible. It’s such a sweet video,” said Natasha, a civil service aspirant.