Nirma, the largest selling single detergent brand in the world, has gone in for a fresh new look. And this time around the company seems to have finally pulled it off. The age-old jingle Doodh si safedi nirma se aye, rangeen kapda bhi khil khil jaaye has got a hip new avatar. What is interesting is there is no script just powerful visuals that do the talking.
After two forgettable commercials?one where people threw food at each other (that another detergent ad probably took a cue from), and another when the popularity of saas-bahu serials on the telly were at the peak of their popularity?this one will catch quite a few eyeballs courtesy the fine treatment.
The dancing girl in white is perhaps the most enduring image of washing powder brand Nirma. This time around we have women dancing in fiery red and oranges with white thrown in to balance, their hair and clothes moving in tandem in an underwater sequence. And before you think it?s an ad for a new LCD television or probably something to do with a luxury brand, the Nirma tune plays in the background, in an opera-like fashion. Message sent and well received, if the agency feedback and customer reactions are anything to go by.
The ad, shot in a Mumbai swimming pool with professional ballet dancers and a choreographer from Las Vegas with a budget of Rs 1.5 crore, is trying to take the brand?s philosophy forward, in a slightly different fashion. Explains Santosh Padhi, co-founder and chief creative officer, TapRoot India, the agency behind the new commercial, ?Nirma users have evolved over the years. The ones who drove scooters are now driving Marutis. So it?s not right to assume that rural India would be the same as it was years ago. It?s a feel-good ad for the new generation of Nirma consumers.?
Nirma?s advertising has always focused on the value-for-money angle. The idea with the latest campaign, says Padhi, is to stick to the age-old message, but present it with a certain degree of freshness.
?We wanted to extend the concept in a fresher way,? he says. ?Nirma has always emphasised on how the whites would stay white, while other colours of the garment would also stay intact. We have all those elements; just that we have presented it differently.?
While many may say the ad is too swish for a brand like Nirma, which is associated with rural and middle- class India, the agency claims consumer feedback has been positive.
?We had consumer feedback that said ?why do you presume we live in some jungle? We are as much connected as you guys are. You might use a Rs 20,000 Nokia, we use a Rs 2,000 but we are still connected.? So yes the 10% doubt we had has vanished. The idea was to make the Nirma consumer feel good and we seem to have done that.?
Since there was no script per se, a lot of attention was paid to detailing?right from creating an underwater set to getting the clothes designed from designer Aparna Chandra. The film has been directed by Shantanu Bagchi of Illusion Films.