Ogilvy launches 'talkative' commercials for Best Foods

The agency's Delhi team created the entire corporate brand right from the stationery to package designing and the TVCs with the positioning of rice being the perfect match

BestMediaInfo Bureau | Delhi | February 2, 2012

How often does one talk about rice? Mostly during lunch, one would presume. In the last few weeks though, they have become the talk of the town.  Thanks to the “talkative” commercials currently on air for Best Foods International.

It all started when Dinesh Gupta, Managing Director, Best Foods, decided to rope in Ogilvy & Mather, Delhi, to design their corporate brand identity, complete from stationery to new packaging design. The new pack was an instant rage in the market because of its fresh and ethnic look. It was a sweet start to a new relationship and somewhere in this was hidden a big idea for the commercials.

Best wanted their rice to be in everyone's mouth and their brand name on everyone's lips. In came the requirement to create TV commercials. Aayushman Gupta, Business Director, Best Foods, said, “We had an interesting challenge to reposition rice from an uninvolved product for the consumer to a desirable brand. The positioning and communication had to be out-of-the-box, clear, uncluttered and keeping with the times through its cues and presentation. The entire team at Ogilvy Delhi thought wonderfully to help us plan and execute the same.”

The creative team at Ogilvy had a tough task on hand: to sell rice, the staple food of India, to all rice-eating consumers of the country. The agency deduced a very simple insight that rice is never eaten in isolation. Thus came the idea of “Best - The Perfect Match”. In brief, rice complements the food it's eaten with in the same way that a perfect couple complements each other.

Ajay Gahlaut, Executive Creative Director, Ogilvy Delhi, explained, “There are various ways of bringing the thought of 'The Perfect Match' alive and several were tried. But experience shows that consumers always warm up to human stories, especially love stories, which is where we hit upon the idea of using different couples to make our idea talk. The chemistry between the couples brings charm to the commercials while effortlessly communicating the brand benefit.”

Three scripts were devised for three strategic markets. Each commercial weaved a story about a perfect couple. Nitin Srivastava, Senior Creative Director Ogilvy Delhi, said, “Cracking the idea was the hard part but fleshing it out was immense fun. We enjoyed writing story after story before we finally rested at three. Here, I would like to specially mention the efforts of Umesh Grover (Copywriter) and Jonathan George (Art Director) who behaved like the perfect match on this project.”

Amit Sharma of Chrome was a wise choice to shoot these scripts. His adept handling of emotions and dialogues comes out in full glory in the series. The films showed how couples from different age groups, mindsets and geographies have something in common – the flavour. Chrome Films did thorough planning and research for two months before finalising the casting. All films were shot in single take to bring out natural reactions from the couples.

The TVCs:

Credits:

Agency: Ogilvy & Mather Delhi

Client: Best Rice

Production house: Chrome Pictures

Director: Amit Sharma

Creative team: Ajay Gahlaut, Nitin Srivastava, Umesh Grover, Jonathan George

Client servicing: Sharmista Dev, Vineet Kindra, Shivani Sharma, Lagun Sehgal

Info@BestMediaInfo.com

Info@BestMediaInfo.com