In India, nobody asks for adhesive. They ask for Fevicol. That kind of brand recall takes decades to build, and brilliant advertising to sustain.
Through advertising brilliance, Pidilite Industries has managed to establish Fevicol as the product to trust: by students, by carpenters, and by everyday Indian.
Much of that credit belongs to Ogilvy and adman Piyush Pandey, who have created many memorable ads for the Fevicol brand. Remember the bus packed so full that passengers rode sitting on the roof but no one fell despite the vehicle being on a bumpy rural road. That was the brilliance which the creative brain of Piyush Pandey and the adhesive brand managed to co-create.
Pandey passed away last year but he left behind a final script that has now come to life with Fevicol’s latest ad campaign – ‘Kursi Pe Nazar’.
The theme of the campaign is the evergreen kursi (chair).
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3mJ2lZmomPg
Kursi in India doesn’t only mean a piece of furniture; it refers to the throne, the seat of the all-powerful – not just in government corridors but also offices, institutions, homes, schools and just about everywhere.
It’s a human tendency to eye growth and for those in jobs, their eyes are set on the next promotion. The goal is the all-powerful kursi.
It could be a manager’s chair for the worker, CEO’s kursi for the faithful, CM’s chair for a long-time MLA, or the PM’s chair for the popular political leader.
Aspiration in India has always had a shape, and that shape is a seat/chair/kursi. The ad beautifully reflects that desire: the goals we set for ourselves at our workplaces, the destinations reflected in coveted chairs.
The ad film captures this by showing a junior school teacher eyeing her principal’s chair (position), a junior police officer keeping his eyes on the senior cop’s chair, a carpenter eyeing his boss’s kursi, and more.
The jingle carries it forward with the kind of ease that only looks simple.
The craft with which the ad has been filmed, the everyday examples used, the narrative and the jingle – all come together to build another masterpiece in Indian advertising.
This one carries that same signature, and the extra weight of being a final word from the man who built it.
The kursi Pandey occupied in Indian advertising remains, for now, unchallenged.