{"id":3377,"date":"2022-10-04T02:42:15","date_gmt":"2022-10-04T02:42:15","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/betadevelopment.in\/apm\/?post_type=avada_portfolio&p=3377"},"modified":"2024-08-27T11:53:58","modified_gmt":"2024-08-27T11:53:58","slug":"liril","status":"publish","type":"avada_portfolio","link":"https:\/\/betadevelopment.in\/apm\/portfolio-item\/liril\/","title":{"rendered":"LIRIL"},"content":{"rendered":"

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PRODUCT SUMMARY<\/h3><\/div>
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The Liril film launched in mid-70s was possibly the first to show a bikini-clad girl in Indian advertising, according to Kailash Surendranath, the ad filmmaker, who directed the film. It also marked a watershed in the portrayal of the Indian woman in soap ads: “prior to that she was always shown as very demure and mostly fully clad.” A girl enjoying her bath and prancing under a waterfall (in Kodaikanal) was a novelty for the Indian audience. It was met with an overwhelming response. Life was never the same for Karen Lunel who acquired a cult status as the first Liril girl. Incidentally, the wild exuberance that she displayed was in equal measure good acting, and the fact that the water was freezing cold, reveals Surendarnath after all these years.<\/span><\/p>\n<\/div>

<\/i><\/i><\/span>In the 1970s, Hindustan Lever was introducing a lime soap in India for the first time. It represented freshness and fun. A consumer survey is said to have given Padamsee the idea for the waterfall scene.<\/span><\/a><\/h4><\/div>
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The survey suggested that Indian women only get little time during the day to be by themselves \u2014 and bathing was one of these moments. The shower became the waterfall, and the idea became a memorable ad for decades.<\/span><\/p>\n

Karen Lunel, the woman bathing and having fun in the ad, continued to be the \u2018Liril girl\u2019 for over a decade. She represented a new India, where wearing a bikini didn\u2019t seem out of the ordinary, and girls could have fun. Lunel was unabashed and unapologetic about enjoying a bath outside, Bijoor said on how the ad became so popular.<\/span><\/p>\n

Some in the industry said that the state-run television channel Doordarshan even refused to air it initially and then decided to fix time slots for the ad.<\/span><\/p>\n

The ad became so <\/span>popular<\/span><\/a> that it became a blueprint for the company. Till 2009, Liril ads featured the waterfall and \u2018Liril girl\u2019 \u2014 Deepika Padukone and Preity Zinta have both starred in the ads.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cThe jingles and the taglines were very carefully crafted, whenever you make an ad, it is absolutely critical to understand the psyche of the people,\u201d Padamsee had told ThePrint in a telephonic interview in September last year. \u201cSomewhere, you need to be a social scientist to understand what will work.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

This ability to connect with the audience was also seen in the Lalitaji ad.<\/span><\/p>\n

However, many consider the Liril Girl his <\/span>pi\u00e8ce de r\u00e9sistance. <\/span><\/i>Karen Lunel didn\u2019t know that stepping under a waterfall would change her life. Neither did Hindustan Lever, the creators of Liril, India\u2019s first lime soap which became raging hit and\u00a0 spawned a thousand imitations.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

There are times when a product can engage a viewer on an emotional level and Liril did that by becoming a synonym for freedom and freshness.<\/span><\/p>\n

The concept is an audio-visual treat and one of the most popular YouTube videos even today, 44 years after its conception.<\/span><\/p>\n

The ad was created by Padamsee along with Lintas executive Neena Merchant.<\/span><\/p>\n

The blueprint proved so successful that Liril barely changed the format, showing\u00a0 just a girl playing in the water, diving, jumping and swimming under the waterfall and becoame a synonym for<\/span> joie de vivre.<\/span><\/i><\/p>\n

It became so popular that the Pambar falls in Kodaikanal became known as the Liril falls.<\/span><\/p>\n

Despite being released in the mores of a time which was conservative and almost 15 years before the economy was liberalised.<\/span><\/p>\n

He had said: \u201cThe beauty of the Liril Girl was that she appealed to the senses. People enjoyed seeing her, which is why she stood out. In other words, she wanted to escape. And her shower in the bathroom was symbolic of this, where she suspended her struggles as a housewife for some time and simply enjoyed her bath.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

Penny pinchers<\/span><\/p>\n

What\u2019s even more fascinating is the set of circumstances that created the Liril girl.<\/span><\/p>\n

HUL actually wanted a soap that signified freshness and wanted a blue soap \u2013 one representing mountain breeze. That however flopped during initial product trials, and the team instead worked on a lime-based soap that was green.\u00a0\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Carrying out the brief was even harder, and they screened over a hundred girls before zeroing in on Karen Lunel. He had said: \u201cWomen could identify with her and many in our survey post-release said that Karen could be their daughter.\u00a0 In other words, our objective was not to make her look sensuous, but project her as a girl who was simply having fun. This is why I think she did so well and people, both young and old, male and female, liked her.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

Lunel remained the face of Liril for over a decade \u2013 from 1974 to 1985, the longest for any Liril girl.<\/span><\/p>\n

Karen Lunel recalled in 2009, how Padamsee would pump her up before shoots. She said: \u201cAlyque Padamsee would make time to build me up before we left on a shoot. It brought out the best, just knowing you are valued. \u201c<\/span><\/p>\n

He had told Telegraph: \u201cThat gave me the idea that we could create a fantasy where she could escape to emotionally when she was having a bath. As a young boy, I loved watching Tarzan films and his girlfriend Jane always used to have a bath under a waterfall and come out looking so fresh. I said why don\u2019t we adopt that idea because we were looking to market Liril from the freshness platform. Most of the soaps of the time focused on complexion, getting rid of pimples and so on. We wanted to talk about a bathing experience that creates a fresh new woman out of you. That\u2019s when we decided on the girl under the waterfall concept.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

Not that Padamsee didn\u2019t have to explain his decision to bean counters and others.<\/span><\/p>\n

In his book he recalls: \u201cWhy is the cost of the Liril film so high, when you don\u2019t have any costumes, except a bikini, and you don\u2019t have any sets, except a waterfall?!!\u201d Being from the theatre, I had a ready reply: \u201cA location shoot actually costs much more than a studio set, because of air tickets and hotel accommodation for models and technical crew, transportation of camera and lighting equipment and fees paid to owners of the location. Add to that, pre-trips (better known as \u2018recce trips\u2019) to find the right location. Would you like to come along for the ride? It will only increase the cost by another Rs. 10,000.\u201d The poor product manager mumbled something incomprehensible and slunk away, my tale between his legs.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

The year of its launch Liril captured 25% of the market, and later tapered off as \u2018freshness\u2019 became a common USP for a lot of other soaps.<\/span><\/p>\n

In 2015, HUL went back the original format, after experimenting with other methods. HUL\u2019s spokesperson had explained: \u201cEven after all these years, when we say Liril, people from all walks of life fondly recall the waterfall, the girl, her spontaneity and energy. They hum the jingle then and there. And these are the roots of Liril. They don\u2019t change. And what we\u2019re doing is paying homage to the Liril that we all know, bringing alive the very same elements that have been part of our popular culture through time.<\/span><\/p>\n<\/div><\/div><\/div><\/div><\/div><\/div><\/div><\/div><\/div>

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Gallery<\/h3><\/div>
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SOME INTRESTING FACTS<\/h3><\/div>
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Almost drunk<\/strong><\/p>\n

Interestingly, they had to give Karen sips of brandy in between shots to keep her warm. He said: \u201cWhat (producer) Kailash Surendranath did was to give Karen sips of brandy in between the shots to keep her warm. Every five seconds, we would pull her out and give her some brandy and put her back in. By the time we were five or six shots down, Karen was quite tipsy and we had to be careful that she didn\u2019t drown! That was quite an experience.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n<\/div><\/div><\/div><\/div><\/div><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The Liril film launched in mid-70s was possibly the first to show a bikini-clad girl in Indian advertising, according to Kailash Surendranath, the ad filmmaker, who directed the film. It also marked a watershed in the portrayal of the Indian woman in soap ads: \u201cprior to that she was always shown as very demure and mostly fully clad.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":3963,"menu_order":1,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"inline_featured_image":false,"footnotes":""},"portfolio_category":[24],"portfolio_skills":[],"portfolio_tags":[],"class_list":["post-3377","avada_portfolio","type-avada_portfolio","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","portfolio_category-campaigns"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/betadevelopment.in\/apm\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/avada_portfolio\/3377","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/betadevelopment.in\/apm\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/avada_portfolio"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/betadevelopment.in\/apm\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/avada_portfolio"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/betadevelopment.in\/apm\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/betadevelopment.in\/apm\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3377"}],"version-history":[{"count":104,"href":"https:\/\/betadevelopment.in\/apm\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/avada_portfolio\/3377\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":7696,"href":"https:\/\/betadevelopment.in\/apm\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/avada_portfolio\/3377\/revisions\/7696"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/betadevelopment.in\/apm\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/3963"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/betadevelopment.in\/apm\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3377"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"portfolio_category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/betadevelopment.in\/apm\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/portfolio_category?post=3377"},{"taxonomy":"portfolio_skills","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/betadevelopment.in\/apm\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/portfolio_skills?post=3377"},{"taxonomy":"portfolio_tags","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/betadevelopment.in\/apm\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/portfolio_tags?post=3377"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}