BRAND BUZZ

Mezan Foods Corporate TVC creates Pyar Ki Bethak

Har Cheez Mezan Mein Achi Lagti Hai is a brand idea more powerful than most of us could even imagine. The word ‘Mezan’ means balance. A very pertinent brand name for food products. The secret behind every great tasting cuisine is not its ingredients nor method but the right mix of everything. It is all about balancing the ingredients at the right time with the right quantity. That is why, Har Cheez Mezan Mein Achi Lagti Hai. Brand idea of Mezan Foods is one of the best in the category. However, getting the brand idea right is not always enough. If a brand gets it right, all its corporate and product communications should bow to the strength of that idea. Campaign ideas must compliment the brand idea, and that is the bottom line.

The reason why I started this piece of writing with Har Cheez Mezan Mein Achi Lagti Hai rather than Pyar Ki Bethak is the aloofness of the current campaign with its roots. Pyar (love) is something that is boundless. Something that cannot be contained or balanced. On the other hand, Mezan is precisely the opposite. It seeks order and meaning out of chaos. That does not mean that Mezan Foods cannot talk about love. It can, and it also should but not the way the brand has done in its recent corporate campaign Pyar Ki Bethak.

Usually a client is blinded when a creative agency casts a spell of glamor, top celebrities and above all the high production quality only attainable in a European country. Such advertising spices are used to cover up the weakness of the campaign idea. Shot in Turkey, it must have been a big deal for Mezan Foods to get Esra bilgiç to endorse the brand. After all Esra has one of the highest fan followings in Pakistan.

Esra Biljic in Mezan Food TVC

It’s fine to utilize the fame and following of Esra Bilgiç, but where does the communication stand. Is the idea powerful enough to engage the audience? Unfortunately not. The opening of the TVC shows Esra with his Pakistani friends talking about food. Esra gets excited about Pakistani food. Her friends take her to a place where she could experience the real taste of Pakistan, which happens to be a festival of Mezan Foods. One expects that Esra’s friends will take her to Pakistan. Instead, they remain in Turkey. What happens next looks like a showcase of Turkish culture rather than Pakistani. Turkey and Iran are most famous for carpet weaving. It did not make any sense to show carpets in the TVC highlighting Pakistan’s traditions.

The whole episode of song and dance, which is supposedly emphasizing the taste of Pakistan, does not come up with a campaign line to connect rich taste of national traditions with the taste of Mezan. Pyar Ki Bethak is too broad to communicate anything meaningful.

It is one thing to spend huge sums of money to produce a brand communication featuring expensive celebrities, another to come up with an idea strong enough to engage the audience. Big brands like Mezan Foods should give more weightage to big ideas than big productions.