The Delhi High Court has dismissed a plea by Dettol, requesting a prohibition on an advertisement for Santoor handwash by Wipro Enterprises. Dettol claimed that the ad was detrimental to their brand. However, Justice C Hari Shankar concluded that the Santoor ad does not degrade Dettol in any way.
As reported on barandbench.com, the court expressed, “To decipher any demeaning or depreciatory connotation regarding Dettol from the disputed advertisement is over-interpreting. Even considering all elements of the ad collectively, there is no message that in any way belittles or devalues Dettol.” The court highlighted that the advertisement doesn’t reference any Dettol features directly and is solely concentrated on promoting Santoor.
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The judgment was delivered in the context of a lawsuit filed by Reckitt Benckiser (India), the producer of Dettol. The contentious Santoor advertisement presents a young girl desiring to play with her mother, whose hands are soiled and rough from gardening. After using Santoor handwash, the mother’s hands become clean and soft, enabling her to join her daughter’s play. The girl is struck by the softness of her mother’s hands and encourages her to keep playing. The voice-over narration exclaims, “the hands are so soft that you do not feel like letting them go.
” Subsequently, a bottle labeled ‘ordinary hand wash’ is taken off the shelf. Dettol contended that the bottle depicted in the ad resembles the shape of the Dettol handwash bottle.
