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If you ask me to remember a/any advertising campaign by a dry fruits brand in India, I’d perhaps first name California Almonds. I don’t remember any specific ad from the brand, but I also recall seeing their ads consistently for a very long time, particularly in Sunday Economic Times when it used to have a glossy Sunday supplement usually filled with other predictably consistent ads like Woodland shoes, Pedigree and Purina pet food, among others.
And then the ads were also in the city supplements of The Times of India, with the ‘tomorrow begins today’ theme!
I also remember the brand had Karishma Kapoor as the brand ambassador at one point, with the ‘handful of goodness’ theme.
I do not recall any other national-level advertising campaign by a dry fruits brand in India even as the business of dry fruits has grown tremendously over the last few years. A simple, rudimentary example is the number of Ajfan Dates stores in Bengaluru, Coimbatore, and similar shops even on the Bengaluru-Coimbatore highway!
If you notice California Almonds’ ads, they are fixated on the health theme. After all, health is the main selling point for dry fruits (and nuts), right? People pay a premium to acquire dry fruits so that they can add healthy snacks along with their regular, otherwise not-so-healthy food.
On the other extreme, we have chocolate brands that position their products like snacks and their advertising tends to be high on fun and quirkiness, even while targeting adults and not children. A good example is that of Cadbury Gems, which was once targeted at children and is now almost exclusively targeted at adults!
For example:
So, the category markers seem clear – chocolates are fun and enjoyable, while dry fruits and nuts are healthy.
But when the categories are merging, what happens? Take Cadbury Fuse’s FIT version which has an equal amount of chocolates and nuts. The ad is not as fun as Gems (only chocolate) but seems like a curious mix of some fun and some health-related communication.
Example:
If the merging can go this far, why shouldn’t the dry fruits/nuts brands go beyond their comfort health zone?
The result is perhaps what we saw as the zaniest ad campaign of IPL this year.
Of all the ads that featured in IPL 2022, the one I found the zaniest was by Happilo, made by the agency Sideways.
It is so delightfully and outrageously oddball, and seems to revel in its utterly pointless goofiness!
The idea seems to have started with the intention of mocking 5-Star’s ‘Do nothing’ premise, but the actual result goes far beyond mocking even the hugely silly 5-Star ads.
The products are not comparable at all – 5-Star is a sugary sweet addiction with nothing healthy about it (unlike Cadbury Fuse FIT which could claim some healthy aspects), while Happilo sells packed dry fruits and nuts, known for being very healthy! Sure, dry fruits are yummy too, but not in the range of chocolatey yummy.
And in a way, the brand and the agency seem to have found a very different way to communicate the healthy aspect – consider this logic: if chocolates, as a snack, are yummy and unhealthy, they could make you lazy, as in ‘do nothing’ of 5-Star fame. On the other end of the spectrum are dry fruits and nuts that are actually healthy and can jolt you out of your lethargy, as in ‘go nuts by doing everything’ 🙂 This does not come across directly, of course, and is merely my premise.
But instead of taking such a message seriously—the way California Almonds has been doddering for more than a decade—Happilo launches the most bizarre visuals at the audience. This is the zone usually used by chocolate ad-makers having fun!
Just how did they end up imagining a person in a bear suit shooting at people’s mouths with a gun loaded with dry fruits, I have no clue – it’s inspired silliness, for sure!
In the process, nothing much is actually being said about the product itself, and this is very unusual for the dry fruits category that has only seen informational communication so far in pan-Indian marketing. The formula seems similar to the CRED ads – say very less about the product, but make sure you show the most unforgettably bizarre thing you can produce. The result too is similar – you can like it or hate it, but it may be very difficult to ignore it. At the very least, you are bound to drop your jaw in shock, probably before exclaiming, ‘What the…!!’
Whether it helps the business or not, that only the brand can say – so no point trying to go Bejan Daruwalla on an ad. They have nailed the first step in advertising – get noticed/don’t be ignored. In the process, they have completely smashed every category template that was held dear by brands in their category.
Of course, the reaction to the ad, at least going by YouTube comments and tweets, hovers on the extreme – extreme hate, extreme liking, or extreme shock.
There is just one odd note, though.
I saw the birthday ad first, and as soon as the bear gets the gun from the gift box and the lady screams in horror, I couldn’t help thinking of the mass shootings in the US. Of course, the shootings are in the US (and not as much in India, if you look past the shooting of Sidhu Moosewala more recently), and the tone of this ad is completely comic.
But there is a gun (though visibly being filled with dry fruits, of course) as a creative device. And there is that woman’s shocked expression (because of the bear in her living room, or because it is carrying a gun, or because of both). I found it a bit surprising that the brand and agency went with that gun-toting device in both ads given the current discourse around guns and violence.