The brand has suffered from criticism in the past from a perceived unpleasant odour, compared to the fragrances of competing brands. Aimed at mothers across Indonesia, the TVC opens with two teams of children playing soccer on a muddy ground.
Deliberately shot with a 'Nike feel' in the opening sequences, the ad shows a number of impressive moves from one of the teams, which finally results in a goal. The post-goal celebrations are reminiscent of the European and South American celebrations, in which the scoring player slides across the ground and then lifts his shirt to cover his face.
During the closing stages of the spot the scorer lifts his shirt back down, clearly enjoying the new fragrance of Rinso. The commercial concludes with a shot of the team ready to kick off again, all standing with their shirts over their heads. Agency chiefs said the high-budget advertisement took a deliberately simple, low-key approach to the brand.
"It gets across that the kids like the smell; it's very basic," said Paul Grubb, regional ECD, Lowe Worldwide. "We wanted it to have a Nike feel at the beginning, and then it slows down to the product sell in the middle, which is quite charming in itself, I think.
Hopefully, it's the first step on the way to improving the Unilever work in Asia, certainly from Lowe's point of view."
