The encyclopedia · Advertising & PR · Marketing decision · 2022
Layer'r Shot's ad had four men decide 'who takes the shot' on a scared woman
Layer'r Shot's ad had four men eye a frightened woman and ask 'who takes the shot' — before revealing they meant the deodorant. India ordered it down.
Layer'r · 2022-06-04
What happened
In mid-2022, Indian personal-care brand Layer'r ran a TV and online campaign for its Layer'r Shot body spray showing four men in a grocery store watching a woman who grows visibly frightened, while one of them says 'We're four, there's one, who takes the shot?' — before the camera reveals the men are discussing the deodorant, not the woman.
The double meaning read to viewers as a gang-rape reference played for a punchline. Celebrities including Priyanka Chopra, Richa Chadha and Farhan Akhtar publicly condemned the ad as 'shameful' and 'disgusting,' and criticism spread rapidly on social media.
On 4 June 2022, India's Ministry of Information and Broadcasting directed Twitter and YouTube to remove the videos, and the Advertising Standards Council of India acted a day earlier to pull the campaign from television. Layer'r apologized, saying it 'never intended to hurt anyone's sentiments... or promote any sort of culture, as wrongly perceived by some.'
Why it happened
- The reveal structure required the audience to sit inside a threatening premise before the punchline resolved it — the joke depended on making a woman's fear legible before explaining it away.
- A wordplay pun ('who takes the shot') that reads as a gang-rape reference doesn't get to claim the literal meaning was the only one intended — the ambiguity was the entire creative device.
- Government intervention, not just public criticism, forced the takedown — a sign the offense crossed from taste into territory regulators treated as a decency violation, not just a PR problem.
The lesson
Layer'r Shot's ad had four men ask 'who takes the shot' while a woman grew frightened, before revealing they meant the deodorant. India's government ordered the ad taken down.
Aftermath
Layer'r pulled the campaign from television and online platforms following the ministry's directive and apologized; the episode drew sustained criticism of how Indian FMCG advertising treats violence against women as comic material.
Sources
- Layer'r Shot apologises for ads that encouraged 'rape culture' — Scroll.in
- Priyanka Chopra blasts 'shameful' Layer'r Shot body spray ad promoting rape culture — CNN Business
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