Britannia is bringing one of its oldest biscuit brands to the fore with an eye on the youth. After its new package colours and size, Britannia Bourbon has come out with a new tongue-in-cheek ad that, shorn of its product shots, would have made it hard to guess it is for a biscuit.
In a departure from his dark themes, film-maker Anurag Basu has directed his first ad film which blends how the youth usually get their way through ingenious means with the experience of eating a Britannia Bourbon. A girl, miffed at her boyfriend watching a cricket match with his gang of friends on an evening planned for a date, does not protest. She instead turns the very act of enjoying a Bourbon biscuit into a trigger for them to be driven out of the house. The boyfriend, of course, does not want his friends’ imagination to run riot.
“At one point or the other, a brand will have to choose what it must stand for,” says Shalini Degan, director (delight and lifestyle), Britannia, explaining the new position peg for an otherwise seldom-advertised brand which had largely been clubbed with the kid-centric Treat. These are brands in Britannia’s chocolate biscuit portfolio. It cannot afford to leave conflicting messages in a category that is growing at over 30 per cent per annum.
Bourbon found a match with the youth who preferred the not-too-sweet taste of this chocolate biscuit. The Rs 120-crore brand has a 33 per cent market share in chocolate biscuits and is expected to post 15 per cent growth after the new campaign. “If earlier, we were not focussed on the youth with Bourbon, then it was our fault that we were not talking to them. Our blind tests and research have told us that they love it,” admits Degan.
Degan says the campaign (other legs and editions of which will be rolled out eventually) aims to build affinity with the youth, “tell them it is their brand”. With Prasoon Joshi heading the creative team at McCann, the brief to reflect the connection with the youth was jointly developed. While Degan mentions the objective to romance every aspect of the brand, Joshi mentions the need for a spicier, naughtier brand that would ooze mystery. Basu was roped in to handle a sensitive script to give it a humourous edge without denigrating the woman.
The tagline, ‘Baahar se kuchh, andar se kuchh aur’, ties the surprising resourcefulness of youth with the biscuit’s characteristics of chocolate sandwiched between biscuits. “Bourbon, through the ad, becomes a partner in your pranks,” sums up Joshi.
Hoping to strengthen its appeal with the youth, which it couldn’t boast of until now, Britannia is pegging the brand as an anytime product that, for example, can be had on the go with a cup of coffee. Below the line activities include tie-ups with cafes and college fests and more distribution in departmental stores near colleges.