Cochin: The leading jewellery chain, KalyanJewellers withdrew the advertisement featuring Bollywood actor Amitabh Bachchan and his daughter after it came under attack from a bank.
The Advertisement Conceptualised by L&K Saatchi and Saatchi for its client Kalyan Jewellers, faced severe criticism from All India Bank Officers’ Confederation and threatened to sue the Jewellery chain accusing it of “casting aspersion and hurting the sentiments of millions of personnel” through the advertisement.
Moreover, Demanding withdrawal of advertisement and an unconditional apology from the jewellery group, the AIOBC General Secretary had alleged that the theme, tone and tenor of the Ad were “disgusting, derogatory, to say the least and is aimed to create distrust in the banking system, for pure commercial gain.
Bowing to the Pressure from AIOBC, Kalyan Jewellers withdrew the controversial ad on 22nd July. In a statement issued by its Executive Director, Ramesh Kalyanaraman said “We sincerely regret the inadvertent hurt caused and withdraw the advertisement from all media with immediate effect,”. Despite withdrawing the advertisement, he had rejected the allegation and said that it was “pure fiction”.
“We understand that the advertisement has hurt sentiments of some people including members of our esteemed banking community. Any such hurtful interpretation being drawn is unintended.” he said,
“We state that the creative advertisement was a work of fiction and not a reflection of banking employees at large. Along with crores of Indians, we acknowledge the valuable contribution of the banking community to our country,” the statement added.
The advertisement features Bachchan as an old man and ShwetaBachchan Nanda as his daughter.
In the ad, Bachchan, depicted as a person with integrity and honesty, is seen visiting a bank branch along with his daughter to return the extra money credited in his pension account and his bitter encounter with bank employees in the process.
“The advertisement portrays banks in bad light, casting aspersion, hurting the sentiment of millions of personnel, stakeholders and is a direct attempt to ruin the trust and confidence of billions of citizenries in banks,” Datta had said.
Bachchan had tweeted the video of the ad, saying “Emotional moment for me..tears welling up every time I see it.. daughters are the best !!”
Popular Malayalam actress ManjuWarrier acted as his daughter in the advertisement’s Malayalam version.
