There’s a famous Halwa shop in Tirunelveli, called Iruttu Kadai Halwa. ‘Iruttu Kadai’ literally means ‘dark shop’, and refers to the shop owner’s chosen tradition of selling the halwa in an outlet (the only outlet) with minimal light!
Similarly, there’s a famous bajji outlet in Chennai, in Mylapore, near Kapaleeswarar Temple. It’s called ‘Jannal Kadai’ bajji. ‘Jannal Kadai’ literally means ‘window shop’. True to the name, the shop is just a window! The owner sells the bajjis through just a window – there is no other entrance or opening to the shop for the buyers!
In both these examples, the shops chose not to brand themselves consciously. And the way they looked became their identity.
Imagine customers referring to a product based on the packaging alone. For instance, Boroline is still referred to as ‘hathiwala cream’ based on the elephant icon on the packs.
But Boroline had a brand name; the ‘hathiwala’ reference was only used colloquially by semi-literate customers in the rural hinterlands. The brand itself did not push it actively in marketing as far as I know.
But one brand did push the product packaging level difference as a unique message in marketing, just to distinguish it from the rivals.
Eveready batteries, then owned by Union Carbide (yes, the one infamous for Bhopal Gas Tragedy; the brand was bought by the Khaitan family in 1994) used to advertise its Red Eveready battery with the line ‘Laal Eveready – The Chosen One’ in the 70s and 80s featuring stars like Shashi Kapoor and Hema Malini. I reckon this was partly because the predominant rival batter brand at that point was Nippo and that used to be in a gold color wrapper from what I recall. Eveready itself had 3 colored variants – blue, white, and red. But red was the premium variant, priced slightly higher than blue and white, and was meant for transistors, and eventually tape recorders and walkmans.
In 1993, when the brand wanted to make a comeback, the brand called the agency Rediffusion. The result was an iconic campaign that celebrated its 25th anniversary in 2018 – Give Me Red!
This was the same year when Pepsi launched its famous Aamir Khan-Aishwarya Rai-Mahima Chaudhry ad!
‘Give Me Red’ was directed by Mahesh Mathai, and was so unusual for a battery brand since the only words uttered in the ad was ‘Give Me Red’ 🙂 It mounted a functional product like a battery—that is not even seen by people after buying and using it—into a fashionable, crave-worthy product! And it did not speak about the product’s benefits at all.
Now, almost 3 decades later, here’s another brand in a completely different product category that uses the same ‘red’ positioning!
Milky Mist, the dairy brand from the South, recently changed its ghee packaging from blue color to red color, for the pet jar variant.
Why? Like Eveready’s reason, I reckon this may be because the other major ghee brands down South have blue or yellow-colored packing, for some reason! Remember: Milky Mist ghee too had blue-colored packs, and continues to have blue-colored pouches!
To announce the launch of the new colored packing (even as the pouches continue to be in blue color!), the brand launched a communication very similar—in intent—to Eveready’s ‘Give Me Red’, in October 2021! The entire ad is built around ‘Milky Mist Red’!
The ad starts with a wife calling her man (spouse/boyfriend) to not forget and buy ghee. She doesn’t indicate which brand of ghee, oddly. She also doesn’t order it herself through her phone online, as it is far more likely in current times 🙂
But, almost as if the entire world heard the call between the two people, people in red-colored clothing insist that he should consider Milky Mist Red (and no ‘ghee’ – this is understood!).
If the ‘red’ connection with Eveready was one perspective based on the messaging, consider another perspective based on the narrative device.
The device is that of the wife reminding the guy to buy something and the whole world reminding him of what he should buy.
The device may be very familiar to many Indians who grew up in the 1980s since it was made immensely popular through the ECE Bulbs ad starring actor Kanwarjit Paintal as the husband who is asked by his wife to buy only ECE Bulbs and the entire city reminds him of ECE Bulbs in assorted Indian languages.
But that’s not it!
If you were wondering how the world came to know about both ECE Bulbs and Milky Mist Red when it was part of a private conversation between couples, the late 2000s ad for Subhiksha Mobiles has the answer!
The ad by Orchard Advertising uses the same narrative device – the wife insists that the husband should check the price before buying a new mobile phone. And the whole world asks him to call a particular phone number without fail! At one point, he stops his bike and just calls that number… it obviously belongs to Subhiksha Mobiles.
How did the world ask him to call Subhiksha’s number? Watch the ad to see the clever reason that was missing both in ECE Bulbs and Milky Mist Red and stayed at a just-go-with-the-flow theme 🙂