By breaking its radio silence through its new TVC, Dhara cooking oil looks to climb up the consumer consideration ladder. Does it succeed?

Shinmin.Bali@expressindia.com

The Ad

The premise of the ad film is a young woman having called her boss over for dinner with her family. Over the course of conversation, the boss discovers that her subordinate’s mother (who, incidentally
cooks yum food with Dhara cooking oil), in fact, lives with her in her marital home, with the ad in typical progressive tones challenging the notion that while a mother and son can live under the same
roof after the son’s marriage, why can’t the same apply to a mother daughter duo? And of course, the brand then rushes in to say how, much like the thinking in this household, it has kept up with changing
times.

Target Audience

25-40 year-olds across SEC A, B and C.

Business Objective

To make Dhara today’s choice by educating consumers on how using less oil is more beneficial.

The Appeal

Functional, Emotional

The signature tune the brand had in the 1990s has been updated to an extent. It will breed familiarity
with the populace that has experienced the brand or has been exposed to its communication back in the
day — prompting recall.

Competitive Edge

The fact that the brand is communicating a ‘recommended usage’ per person serves as a guideline to
the consumer, who in turn just might see it as a case of a brand being honest and aligned with the
consumer goal of being healthy.

Tone of Voice

Warm

Verdict

In much simpler times when the consumer wasn’t assaulted with information on various types of fats
that are out there, the ideal cholesterol level to maintain, or even when talking about switching to olive
oil wasn’t a thing yet, Dhara enjoyed immense popularity with the masses. That was until it slipped
from the radar giving away its market share to players that were faster in innovating and much smarter
in wrapping their communication around consumer concerns of health and lifestyle; brands like
Saffola, Fortune and Sundrop come to mind.

With its current communication, Dhara TVC’s storyline checks the social messaging box, the emotional
style of storytelling and the health benefit argument. At this stage, it has stayed away from actually
spelling out that ‘Dhara is back’ and relies on the audience’s intelligence and patience to absorb the
progressive social message first; second, the quantified health benefit defined by the 30gm/day usage
per person; and third, the musical version of the Dhara Dhara Shudh Dhara signature tune. This tune
has been utilised subtly enough mostly to act as a bridge between those that are familiar with the brand from its heydays and those that are discovering it now.

Between the social messaging and the health benefit, we are a bit confused about which cause is the
brand looking to stick with in the long term given that both of them have been bundled under the ‘zara
sa badlav banaye life behtar’ (a small change can make life better) peg. Wonder why the brand chose to
shy away from leveraging its equity of the old days?

Rating: 6/10

Agency: DDB Mudra

Brand: Dhara Cooking Oil (Mother Dairy)

Campaign: Zara Sa Badlaav

Production House: Radhika Produces Films

@shinminbali