Well-cooked “biryani” by Surf Excel detergent
It’s been several months since Surf Excel “Tez” campaign is running on the mainstream media. But it is still fresh in our minds. Why… “Biryani!!!”
Sometimes a song, a line, a jingle, or even a word sticks to your mind without any apparent reason. Surf Excel Tez TVC has something about it that sticks. It just keeps coming back to you. Sometimes it’s “biryani nahe banai bhai” sometimes it’s the jingle “tez tez tez” and sometimes it’s just “biryani…” The way the two little kids have acted is simply amazing.
It’s short, crisp and to the point. The ad connects the brand and the campaign idea creatively and seamlessly. If we look at the past couple of years Surf Excel communications have been spot on. Their ads are among the best creative works recently produced. Its previous campaign idea “Dagh to achay hotay hain” was also bold and unique that worked well for the brand.
But Creative ads have one inherent problem. They overshadow and overpower the brand. At times people remember the ad but forget which brand it was for. One classic example is “The Rhythm of Unity”. The ad is more than two decades old but even if you have seen it once you will never forget it. “The Rhythm of Unity” was a great ad for a tobacco brand. But most of the people who have seen the ad do not remember the brand it was made for. Kenwood also faced this problem with Nawazuddin Siddiqui series of ads. Though they were interesting and engaging yet the brand was somehow compromised. There are numerous local and international examples where good communication gets bigger than the brand and the product. “Tez” TVC also poses the same threat to Surf Excel. We remember biryani and the cute kids but the brand somehow gets out of mind.
Ariel is the major competitor of Surf Excel detergent. It is quite surprising that Ariel has not changed the pattern of its communication. They are running on a formula rather than a creative communication strategy. You change the celebrity and you get a new ad because the rest remains the same.
Surf Excel detergent has produced some of the finest marketing campaigns in the recent past. It remains to be seen how they move ahead from the position they have already achieved.
