Fact Check: Photo From Anti-Mosquito Spray Ad Campaign Falsely Linked To Kangana Ranaut Slap Row
Claim: Photo of the slap mark on Kangana Ranaut’s face.
Kangana Ranaut Slap Controversy
Kangana Ranaut, the newly elected BJP MP from Himachal’s Mandi, made headlines on Thursday after a woman CISF constable allegedly slapped the actor-turned-politician during a security check at the Chandigarh airport. The CISF constable who allegedly slapped Ranaut reportedly told the actor that the action was in response to her “disrespecting farmers”, likely referring to Ranaut’s past comments on the farmers’ protest.
Fact
Newschecker ran a keyword d search for “Kangana Ranaut slap photo”, which led us to multiple news reports on the incident, however, none of the articles had such a photo, raising our doubts.
We ran a reverse image search, which led us to this write-up on Ads of the World, featuring a zoomed-out photo of a woman’s face with a slap mark. “This professional campaign titled ‘Slap two’ was published on May 30, 2006,” read the caption of the photo, indicating that it was for a mosquito killer spray from international pesticide brand Baygon.
A comparison of the two images shows that it is the same photo that has been zoomed in and gone viral (right) on social media.
A further search led us to this coolmarketingthoughts.com blog post, dated May 31, 2006, on the ad campaign, which featured similar photos. “Baygon is the solution to the non-masochists amongst us. If you need to get rid of the flying bullies painlessly and you’re tired of slapping yourself, you should try the spray can,” read the post, hailing the ad.
The fact check was first published by Newschecker and republished by Deccan Chronicle as part of Shakti Collective.
