A new advertisement from Lever AYUSH (which stands for Ayurveda, Yoga, Unani, Siddha and Homeopathy, according to the central government’s AYUSH portal) informs us about a range of new ayurvedic skin care and hair care products. The advertisement starring our very own swadeshi Kumar and the beauteous Tammanah, seems to do more than tell us about their own products. It also appears to be taking a dig at Patanjali products:
Lever Ayush is a brand offering a range of skin & hair care products, soaps and toothpastes that claim to use natural ingredients and ayurvedic recipes from 5000 year old texts to offer effective solutions. The product website claims to pick ingredients at certain times of the day to ensure maximum potency. Lever Ayush works with Ayurvedic institutes; Arya Vaidya Pharmacy (AVP) to formulate products, says the product website.
The ad starring Akshay Kumar and Tammanah begins with a very swadeshi looking Akshay Kumar asking about new beauty products, seeming to mock products that call themselves ayurvedic without just reason. Perhaps this is reference to the fact that regulation with regard to products labeling themselves as ‘ayurvedic’, ‘natural’, ‘herbal’ and so on is lax and not rigorously enforced.
If we can overlook what is a rather obvious case of mansplaining, the actor seems to be taking a dig at all those who claim to manufacture ‘ayurvedic’ products but may not be doing so in actuality. This could well be a reference to the Patanjali brand which has recently being the news for allegedly passing off as “pure cow ghee”, a product that is allegedly made from the milk of various animals and not just cows.
Obviously a mere woman is caught up - wide-eyed - in the optics of it all; so it is up to the man to explain that every product that features green leaves is not necessarily natural or ayurvedic and that the genuine article is now being offered by Lever Ayush. This could be a dig at the type of packaging that Patanjali typically uses perhaps?
When Akshay’s character says “Dikhave se bacho” he is saying that the consumer should be wary of false claims. This could be a veiled reference to some of the safety issues that have surrounded some Patanjali products. There have been various claims about Patanjali noodles being substandard and containing higher than permissible quantities of ash. Issues of mislabeling and pre-dating products have also become associated with the brand.
Patanjali’s advertizing campaigns base themselves mostly on the ‘swadeshi’ angle; urging people to stop buying other ‘foreign’ products in favour of the Made in India Patanjali brand. Patanjali adverts often feature Baba Ramdev urging people via TV, radio or print mediums to support swadeshi while implying that other brands are chemical laden, impure and undesirable. Patanjali was earlier found to be guilty of and fined for “misrepresentation and misbranding”. Perhaps Lever Ayush is trying to counter Patanjali’s advertising style…albeit in a altogether more refined and subtle way; with vastly better production values?
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