Surf Excel's New Holi Ad Makes People Downgrade Microsoft Excel App On Google Play Store
As #BoycottSurfExcel continues to be widely used, some are rating MS Excel low!
Surf Excel garnered a lot of eyeballs with the release of their latest ad 'Rang Laaye Sang' featuring a Hindu girl and Muslim boy. While one group saw it as commercial promoting communal harmony, others said that it spreads negativism. The video went viral on social media with people sharing their opinion on the video. And soon #BoycottSurfExcel began to trend on Twitter with some internet users turning it into a communal war. People even burned down packets of Surf Excel in protests. As #BoycottSurfExcel continues to be widely used, some are rating MS Excel low!
In a clear case of mistaken identity, people are writing hate reviews against MS Excel and rating them low in Google Play Store maybe thinking it to be Surf Excel. It seems people searched for MS Excel through Google Assistant and it gave them results for Surf Excel. And soon hate comments, and low-rated reviews began trending on social media. Surf Excel's 2019 Holi Ad #RangLaayeSang is Out and Twitter Is Divided With #SurfExcel Reactions (Watch Video)
Surf Excel's one-minute ad shows children celebrating Holi. A little girl comes riding a cycle and the children drench her in water. She stays there till they finish all the colours and water. After which she takes her friend, a young Muslim boy in white clothes to the mosque saving him being stained by the colours. #BoycottGillette Trends, Men Discard Products Protesting Against Men Grooming Brand's Latest Ad.
Check out the tweet below:
Surf Excel or the parent company Hindustan Unilever has not yet commented on the incident.
As the tweets go viral, some also say that it is fake and people won't mistake a detergent brand for Microsoft's app.
Here is Surf Excel's ad that caused the outrage:
A similar incident happened in 2017 when Snapchat CEO Evan Spiegel said he is not interested in expanding his business to "poor countries" like India. The rating of the popular app dropped a single star from five stars on the Play Store app. And social media users began to tweet against Snapdeal, an e-commerce company mistaking it for Snapchat even affecting its rating on the App Store.
(The above story first appeared on LatestLY on Mar 12, 2019 03:56 PM IST. For more news and updates on politics, world, sports, entertainment and lifestyle, log on to our website latestly.com).