Bombay Shaving Company's ad mentioning Prachi Nigam sparks an online debate

Prachi Nigam achieved an impressive score of 98.5% in Uttar Pradesh's Class 10 board exam, earning praise on social media. However, the positivity quickly turned to negativity as trolls mocked her for facial hair, eclipsing her academic success.

Shantanu Deshpande, CEO of Bombae, a women's hair removal brand from Bombay Shaving Company, took this opportunity to promote its razors through a newspaper advertisement. The ad addressed Prachi, stating, "Dear Prachi, they're mocking your hair today, but they'll be cheering your All India Rank tomorrow." The message ended with, "We hope you're never bullied into using your razor."

This marketing approach led to a debate about whether the brand was taking advantage of a sensitive issue for commercial gain.

Jaskaran Singh Kapany, former CMO of Xiaomi and PayTM, shared his thoughts on the issues, stating, "A teenage girl tops a competitive exam but gets trolled by a few folks for her facial hair. A personal care & grooming company releases a full-page ad on this. At a basic level, to me- it fails on various counts: distasteful, insensitive, unnecessary, esoteric and irrelevant."

Additionally, Deepti Karthik, CMO of Sleepyhead, also took to LinkedIn and said, "Tough times to be a marketer, sometimes all you wish is you are not trolled, it's ok if the ad doesn't win any awards or doesn't go viral at least let it not go horribly wrong. To err is to be human. To accept error and take corrective action is to be a wise human."

The ad further sparked criticism with netizens posting about the situation on LinkedIn saying, "Isn't this advertisement bullying Prachi on a national level? You need a better copywriter. This is disgusting!"

While another LinkedIn user commented, "Hey Shantanu. This is absolutely absurd. Nothing cool about this ad, and it's so unfortunate that even companies with reputation don't want to leave a chance of leveraging an unfortunate incident."