Apparently a guy in India is suing Unilvever (owners of Lynx deodorant – called Axe in India) for not giving him the Lynx Effect (I was really hoping that the first return on Google for that would be a wiki entry).

According to the Daily Record:

A LUCKLESS romeo has sued cosmetics firm Lynx after he failed to land a girlfriend during seven years of using their products.
Indian Vaibhav Bedi, 26, is seeking £50,000 from parent company Unilever for the “depression and psychological damage” caused by the lack of any Lynx effect.
Court officials in New Delhi have accepted dozens of half-used body washes, shampoos, anti-perspirants and hair gels for forensic tests.

What a PR gift! Now I don’t know if India has an equivalent of the ASA, but if I worked at Unilever (or Hindustan Unilever India) I’d sign this guy up – either settle the court case (though that has implications) or get him to drop it – as the face of a new PR campaign.

Imagine it, this is the reality TV show and online character you want to see. Never mind Pop Idol/X Factor of Talent Going Dancing, this is the real thing.

Here’s how I would do it:

• Online TV show – at least half an hour every week, more depending on how often this guy goes out – either have him film with a Flip (or equivalent) or have a mate out with him.
• Get him to write a dating advice/’how to pull’ column in a lad’s mag.
• Have him blog about the seven years he’s been trying to get a girl… what went right/wrong?
• (There’s a book in it as well but get the blog up and running first.)
• Take him on a world tour – what countries can he pull in and what countries can’t he?
• Reveal the most common knockack likes he receives.
• Get the Gok Wans of this world to give him a makeover.
• Get plastic surgeons and fitness types to look at him.

With a little bit of creativity, this guy is a PR dream. He’s the original down on your luck guy who just wants a girlfriend. Every teenager can relate, every girl can feel sorry for that guy, every dad will scoff, every mum will feel sorry for him. He’s also on the doorstep of the biggest market in the world (which also attracts elsewhere, so he could go to the UK, the US and so on).

Of course, if you had such a PR campaign planned, what would be the best way to launch it? By having the guy sue you in the first place and take you to court.

So this may well be a clever PR stunt in the first place. If not, Unilever should grab this guy quick, because if they don’t I’m sure his competitors are thinking of it…