‘La lara la la…’ Whenever we hear this tune, we remember the old TV commercial. Along with this, the face of the model girl taking bath in the waterfall is also remembered. The advertisement was for a soap called Liril. At that time this advertisement was shown in the theatre. So let’s know the interesting story behind this TV advertisement.
The year is 1975. Hindustan Unilever Limited ie HUL was launching its freshness soap, which was named Liril. The company wanted to advertise for the promotion of this soap, which would take it door-to-door. The company approached ‘Lintas’ for this. The company handed over its responsibility to Kailash Surendranath. The theme of the ad was freshness. The company was looking for a fresh face as well as a unique location. Kailash and his team traveled across the country in search of locations. Along with this, the search for new faces was also going on. Kailash’s search ended at Mumbai’s US Club, where he met 18-year-old Karen Lunell. Kailash’s team got the model and now they were looking for the location, which reached ‘Tiger Falls’, a waterfall in Tamil Nadu.
Tiger fall starts in December and January itself. The team decided to shoot the advertisement at the same time, but meanwhile the temperature remains very low. The ad was to be shot under a waterfall in a temperature of 3 or 4 degrees. The 20-minute musical track had already been recorded. Lunell even had to go behind a waterfall to shoot an ad. During that time he used to see snakes there many times. Lunel was scared of the snake, but he didn’t get scared and gave the shot in one take.
In an interview, Lunell said that it was so cold at Tiger Falls that he and the team had to take brandy shots. He even had to resort to alcohol to keep himself warm! She said that it was not easy to shoot in a bikini in those days. This ad for Liril soap changed Karen Lunell’s life. She became very famous after this ad. People started whistling happily seeing him. Named it ‘Liril Girl’. He was also offered roles in several films, but showed no interest. She wanted to see the whole world, so she joined an airline.
