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How ITC Charmis Made Face Serum Application a Three-Step Ritual
ITC Charmis launched the "Swish-Dab-Dab" campaign in India in December 2021 to demonstrate how to apply the Charmis Deep Radiance Face Serum and communicate its skin-brightening benefits through a memorable, choreographed three-step routine brought to life by brand ambassador Kiara Advani in a short film produced by Small Fry Films.
Charmis carries nearly a century of equity in the Indian market, having been established as a cold cream brand before ITC acquired it from Colgate-Palmolive in 2017, as reported by exchange4media. At the time of acquisition, the brand's market share had reportedly fallen below one percent, according to exchange4media, signalling an urgent need for repositioning. ITC's answer was a staged reinvention: first a 2018 relaunch anchored in traditional values, and then, by 2021, a decisive pivot toward efficacious, new-age skincare products designed for contemporary Indian women. The Deep Radiance Face Serum represented Charmis's first serious move into the serum segment, a category experiencing strong consumer interest across India.
The campaign's central mechanic is its application ritual. The name "Swish-Dab-Dab" is not decorative shorthand — it is a functional instruction, describing exactly how users should dispense, press, and pat the serum onto skin. Wunderman Thompson, the agency behind the campaign, built the entire creative around this behaviour, transforming a product usage step into an ownable brand expression. The film aired in India in December 2021, timed to the winter skincare consideration cycle when cold cream heritage brands like Charmis historically hold strong consumer recall. Kiara Advani, one of Bollywood's most prominent young actors at the time, served as the new face of the brand, replacing Kajol who had fronted the 2018 relaunch, as documented by exchange4media. Advani's energy and widely noted skin vitality were cited as a deliberate match to the brand's repositioned personality, oriented toward radiance, lightness, and effortless modern living. The Clapboard Score for this campaign is 57 out of 100.
Charmis entered the face serum category at a moment when the Indian skincare market was demonstrating significant structural growth. India's skincare market was valued at approximately US$2.6 billion in 2021, according to GlobalData, with face care representing the single largest segment by both value and volume. According to data cited by Pdf Marketpublishers, face care accounted for roughly 57 percent of skincare revenue in 2020, implying substantial consumer spending concentrated precisely where Charmis was attempting to compete. The strategic imperative was clear: ITC needed Charmis to earn credibility in a segment it had never previously owned.
The brand's repositioning philosophy rests on the idea that skincare should be democratised — accessible, affordable, and uncomplicated for young Indian women who lead mobile, high-pace lives. This consumer insight sits at the heart of the "Swish-Dab-Dab" campaign. Rather than positioning the Deep Radiance Face Serum as aspirational or luxury, Charmis and Wunderman Thompson framed it as practical, joyful, and easy to integrate into daily life. The three-step application name itself performs a communicative function: it removes any intimidation associated with serum use, a format that Indian mass-market consumers were only beginning to adopt at scale in 2021.
The competitive landscape in India at this time was formidable. Hindustan Unilever, with brands including Lakmé, Ponds, and Glow and Lovely, was identified as the largest overall skincare company in India by value, holding an estimated 15 to 25 percent of broad facial skincare, according to GlobalData. L'Oréal India, operating brands such as L'Oréal Paris and Garnier, represented a second significant competitor in the face care and serum category. Against these entrenched players with deep distribution and marketing investment, ITC Charmis pursued a differentiation strategy built on instructional clarity, celebrity authenticity, and the brand's long-standing cold cream heritage converted into a trust signal for new formulations.
Wunderman Thompson India built the creative execution around a single, repeatable behaviour rather than around product attributes alone. The "Swish-Dab-Dab" action sequence functions simultaneously as product instruction, brand mnemonic, and performance hook — a rare instance of a usage cue becoming the campaign's emotional centrepiece. The film was produced by Small Fry Films, with Kiara Advani performing the three-step ritual on screen with the energy and spontaneity the brand required.
Tista Sen, Regional Creative Director at Wunderman Thompson South Asia, articulated the creative rationale in comments published by BestMediaInfo on December 23, 2021. Sen stated: "For young women skin care needs to be easy-peasy and one that fits into your lifestyle. Light and easily absorbed Charmis Deep Radiance strikes a chord that is vibrant and full of energy. More importantly it makes skin care routine fun, just swish dab a dab." This creative philosophy — turning a functional step into something playful — explains the tonal choices evident in the film: bright production design, kinetic pacing, and Advani's characteristically expressive delivery.
Vijay P. Jacob, Senior Vice President and Managing Partner at Wunderman Thompson Kolkata, is also credited on the campaign, according to BestMediaInfo and passionateinmarketing.com, reflecting the regional agency structure through which Wunderman Thompson managed the ITC Charmis relationship. Sameer Satpathy, Divisional Chief Executive of the Personal Care Products Business at ITC Limited, served as the client spokesperson for the campaign's trade communications, as reported by BestMediaInfo. The film medium was chosen as the primary vehicle, with a single media asset at launch, concentrating creative impact rather than fragmenting it across formats. The visual language deliberately distances the campaign from cold cream nostalgia, signalling through colour, movement, and casting that Charmis is operating in a new skincare register entirely.
No independently verified performance data — including view counts, sales uplift figures, or brand tracking results — for the "Swish-Dab-Dab" campaign is publicly available at the time of this analysis. ITC Limited does not publish campaign-level metrics in its public disclosures, and neither Wunderman Thompson nor Small Fry Films have released quantified results through trade channels.
What the structural evidence does support is a campaign designed with efficiency in mind. A single-film, single-message approach concentrated on one repeatable behaviour — "Swish-Dab-Dab" — lowers the cognitive cost of adoption for a product category that Indian mass-market consumers were still learning to navigate in 2021. The mnemonic naming convention serves recall and word-of-mouth functions simultaneously, meaning the campaign carries earned media potential built directly into its creative device.
Kiara Advani's appointment as brand ambassador also carries structural weight. By December 2021, Advani was among the most commercially sought-after actors in India, and her association with the Charmis Deep Radiance Face Serum gave the brand access to a younger, digitally active audience segment that had previously shown little reason to engage with a heritage cold cream label. The contrast with the 2018 Kajol campaign — which, as reported by exchange4media, centred on moral character and inner goodness — illustrates how deliberately ITC shifted Charmis's brand personality toward external radiance, lightness, and contemporary relevance between its two relaunch phases. Whether the campaign successfully closed the distance between Charmis and category leaders such as Hindustan Unilever's Lakmé or L'Oréal India remains unverified by public data.
The Swish-Dab-Dab campaign is a December 2021 film by Wunderman Thompson India for ITC Charmis. It demonstrates the three-step application ritual for the Charmis Deep Radiance Face Serum and features Kiara Advani as brand ambassador. The campaign's goal was to make serum use feel simple and joyful for young Indian women.
Wunderman Thompson India created the Swish-Dab-Dab campaign for ITC Charmis. Key agency personnel included Tista Sen, Regional Creative Director at Wunderman Thompson South Asia, and Vijay P. Jacob, Senior Vice President and Managing Partner at Wunderman Thompson Kolkata. Small Fry Films served as the production company, according to campaign trade records.
ITC Charmis appointed Kiara Advani because her energy and widely noted skin vitality aligned with the brand's repositioned personality around radiance and modern living. Advani replaced Kajol, who had fronted the 2018 relaunch, as reported by exchange4media. The switch signalled a deliberate shift toward a younger, digitally active consumer audience in India.
Swish-Dab-Dab describes the three-step physical process for applying the Charmis Deep Radiance Face Serum. It functions as both a product usage instruction and a brand mnemonic. Wunderman Thompson built the entire creative around this behaviour, transforming a routine application step into an ownable, memorable expression central to the campaign's identity.
ITC acquired Charmis from Colgate-Palmolive in 2017, when the brand's market share had reportedly fallen below one percent, according to exchange4media. The Swish-Dab-Dab campaign represents the second phase of a staged reinvention, moving Charmis from cold cream heritage into new-age serums designed to democratise skincare for young, mobile Indian women.
India's skincare market was valued at approximately US$2.6 billion in 2021, according to GlobalData. Charmis entered the face serum segment against Hindustan Unilever, identified as India's largest skincare company by value with brands including Lakmé and Ponds, and L'Oréal India, making differentiation through instructional clarity and celebrity casting a strategic necessity.
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