The New Nirma Ad : Voice of a new generation ?

Wow! The new Nirma Ad is out. And what a furore it has created. Who new that a tiny 63 seconder(OK..not so tiny!) would cause so many people, including yours truly, to burn away litres of midnight oil to write, criticise or simply gush about it. Oh where are my manners ... Before I add my more than 2 penny's worth, here's the Ad itself -->

Nirma Washing Powder from Campaign India on Vimeo.

OK ..now that you know what the hoopla is about here's what I think of it:

The Ad itself is definitely something that would be noticed among the zillions of sudsy ads doing the rounds of the television circuit. Taproot India, the creative agency that delivered this deserve a pat on the back for the execution, if not a full fledged Cannes Lion.Speaking of which, some of the more knowledgable industrywallahs have also noticed that that look and feel of the ad is quite similar to an Award Winning Ariston Aqualtis Ad. See for yourself -->

Hmm...Verry nice. Yes the two ads do look similar, but frankly guys, if you call this a copy, then every single car ad would have to be a copy of every other car ad that you have come across. Well, yes both of these ads are shot underwater with some very creative visuals but other than that I don't see how the Nirma Ad could be called a copy of the ad above. As the honourable Mr. Santosh Padhi puts it on afaqs.com(He is btw, the Chief Creative Officer at TapRoot India) - “Neither Ariston nor Nirma invented films shot underwater. Johnnie Walker, Antiquity and many more brands have done it before. That is why waterproof cameras were invented,” he quips.

He quips well I think!

Ok now that we have got that "inspiring" bit about its originality out of the way, here are some more tidbits for those (like myself) who'd like to discuss the merits of this ad as an effective communication tool and the campaign strategy.

At the risk of sounding biased (I'm living right on the edge, ain't I?) I do think that the ad cuts through the clutter very effectively. I do not have the advantage of being an industry insider, but even to my layman eyes, the Ad was visually very appealing, the first time I saw it. Had it not been for the jingle at the end, I would have never guessed it to be an ad for Nirma, not in a million years. I knew it was something to do with clothes and the colours. The jingle at the end ties up the visuals perfectly and got me to sit up and take notice of the fact that Nirma was finally catching up with the times.

Here's what Mr. Padhi had to say about the client brief on exchange4media.com - “The original Nirma commercial has iconic status in Indian advertising. It is still very dear to a large section of the Indian middle class. Quite clearly, the brief was to contemporise and refresh the core of the brand without eroding its basic essence of simplicity, sincerity and joyful upliftment." Load of crap, if you ask me. Without using so many words, this is what I read into it - they wanted to do something new, something different, but their association with Nirma is at too nascent a stage for them to be able to to go the whole hog and change the entire brand promise. I hope that the client is pleased with their effort, coz they seem to be on the right track.

As per afaqs.com, Amit Akali, group creative director, Ogilvy & Mather Bengaluru, feels this is a half-way attempt to contemporise the brand – "while it looks radically different, it is still in the space of women dancing around, although in a different setting. “Also, just when you start appreciating that the look is dramatically non-Nirma, old elements are suddenly resurrected – the big branding, jingle and the Nirma girl – maybe they should have gone all the way and not just half way forward,” he muses.

Muse all you will Mr. Akali, but I beg to disagree on the point about the jingle. I think the recomposed jingle (modernised by composer R Anandh) refreshes the brand connect. It sounds fresh and yet reminds the viewer of the iconic Nirma jingle. You could remove the banner, the girl in the frock or the Nirma logo, and the jingle would have still given you the same brand recall that the original has worked so hard for, all these years. Its contemporary, it marks a transition from the old to the new but not so fast as to alienate the oh-so-loyal customer base of Nirma, something that was distinctly missing from the Godrej rebranding exercise a few weeks ago. (More on that later may be...)

Ok , enough about the Ad itself. The all-knowledgable son-of-an-angel that I am, I'm going to add just a little bit about the Nirma brand strategy and the way forward. I won't go into the history of the brand or its previous campaigns (Anyone interested in finding out about the same- just type The Nirma Story in Google. See you in 5 or 6 years..Lemme know how it goes). Instead I'm going to focus on what would I do with Nirma,(as a brand, not as a washing detergent) if I owned it ( which, for the record, I don't).

Hmm..what do you do with a brand that's as "Iconic" as Nirma. They have been a success for close to 40 years now, they have given headaches to almost all the major FMCG marketing heads. They have made money, lots of it, at the bottom of the pyramid, as the inimitable Dr. C. K. Prahlad puts it. They, along with Surf, are to detergents in India what Xerox is to photocopying or Dalda is to hydrogenated vegetable oils. So where does the brand go from here?

Well for one they give Taproot India 3 months and close to 1.5 crores to spend in order to take the brand message to the next level. “The advertisement takes Nirma into a premium base, although the pricing is still for the masses. We wanted to create a top-of-the-mind recall for the brand which was waning of late,” said Manan Soni, director, Purnima Advertising. Purnima has been handling the creative and the media duties of the company for 30 years.(as per mydigitalfc.com)

Hmm.."top-of-the-mind recall" is all good, but to hope that merely a TVC can put the brand into a higher orbit is like trying to land on the moon using a Cessna Twin engine.I hope they have a competent strategy revolving around this Ad. Nirma is THE brand of the masses. It is not an aspirational brand and let's face it, they are into the business of making money (who isn't?) and do not need to compete with the high end premium brands, just for the sake of competition. Instead of trying to take them on in the premium segment , I would much rather concentrate on growing my own mass base. For eg. , their new TVC could be the PERFECT launching pad for a detergent for Washing Machines. Millions of middle class households who are just now upgrading to Washing Machines from hand wash , could be introduced to Nirma Washmatic.From what I uderstand about the difference in formulation for regular detergent and a detergent specific for Washing Machines, the one for the Washing Machines is actually cheaper to manufacture.If Nirma could come up with a Washing Machine variant, package it better and use this refreshing new TVC as the launch pad for the new variant, they could grow their own category and can let the premium brands fight it out between themselves. They could even take it further by aggressive marketing initiatives specifically for Institutional sales. They can definitely hold thier own on the price front for the institutional customers and once that market is cornered, Nirma Washmatic could actually be the preferred brand for washing machines if the word-of-mouth publicity catches on.

Conclusion :

The ad itself is a refreshing new first for Nirma. Its a clutter breaker for sure and similarities with the Ariston Aqualtis aside, does the job for the client for which it was intended and that is " Recall value" in a fresh new avtar.

My only concern is that it might become a one-off TVC and too much may be expected out of a single TV Ad.Without a complementary strategy to go along with it, it might just end up becoming another Ad that was.

Cheers:)

This is for Subbu.

"What are you doing about it?", the words are still ringing in my head like a precisely manouvered punch to the temple from Tyson, although I would have been shitting blood by now had I actually received one from him.

It was a usual weekend, the usual drinking with buddies and bitching about life, work, money, the girls they are currently after and the ones that got away. I was at my fluent best while trying to explain exactly why I could never make a career out of writing or journalism or advertising. I was just about to comprehensively prove that my company and the job that I was doing was so abviously full of crap that I need not even try to explain it...and right then, when I least expected it, Subbu threw a fast one at me, " So...what are you doing about it ?"

I gaped at him in wide mouthed stupor trying to understand the question or rather wondering whether I had an answer. Of course, he thought that I had had one too many and the conversation further drifted away towards proving the lousy capabilities of my system to hold good quality Vodka. I was back in the thick of things a few minutes later, raising toasts to the ticks on my dog and the evening passed out into oblivion ...as did I.

The next Sunday morning brought with it lessons on why I should not drink as if there was no tomorrow. Over a period of time and after several repetitions what you learn is that there is always tomorrow , no matter how much we may wish for it to remian Today forever. And that unwanted Tomorrow brought with it a bad hangover, blocked nose, choked throat and eyes that refuse to open at the slightest suggestion of light.

Pammi threw a wet towel towards me and brought me my tea the way I like it. I could never have loved her more, not to suggest that I love any and every chaiwallah/chaiwalli, just that I only love the best of them all and that's Pammi for you. But more on her later.

As the senses returned, slowly and painfully, I started hearing those words again, and again, and again and again till I ran out of agains. Pammi, whose favourite pastime is to read and pick apart my mind like normal people read Frederick Forsyth Novels, was showing signs that she would actually hit me in the head if I didn't come out with whatever it was I was thinking.

So as I was saying, before I was interrupted by various mundane things called Life, I started talking. And of course, before long I realised that those words have changed my life forever. I can never go back to being my same old cribbing, whining, not-doing-anything-about-it self.

How many times does it happen to all of us? May be I am the only one who thinks this way.... or may be not. How many times have we actually done something to change what we don't like in this world? I know I hadn't. I am not a Gandhi, I am not out to change the world. I am just a selfish, self centered guy like millions others out there who is out to change his own life, just enough so that I can have fewer things to complain about.

What I have also realised is , that I do not and cannot succeed E-V-E-R-Y single time. I may not be able to change everything that I'd like to be changed, but as long as I know I have actually, sincerely tried to change it... believe it or not, it gives you a different kinda high. You have to pick your battles and as long as I pick mine wisely, I am gonna be alright.

"What are you doing about it?" - I owe it to you Subbu.

( Btw, by the time I finished, Pammi was checking my eyes, touching my forehead, making me walk on a stright line.... just to check whether I was on drugs, had fever or was still drunk....But that's a story for some other time.)