Iconic Indian Brand Taglines: Part 1

After my last article on "Iconic Global Brand Taglines", few readers suggested writing one on Indian brand taglines. This is the first part in that series. Please go through and advise which others iconic desi taglines you feel definitely deserve make it to the list.

Paper Boat

Drinks and Memories

While discussing business ideas over lunch, the founders realized that there was a dearth of branded ethnic drinks like Jaljeera, Aam Panna etc in the Indian non-alcoholic beverages market. Competing against the colas and aerated drinks, instead of harping on their Indian roots they chose to go a level deeper - nostalgia. Local drinks that people enjoyed in their childhood had a lot of memories associated with them. They decided to name their line of desi drinks as Paper Boat, allegedly inspired by Jagjit Singh's elegy to childhood "Woh Kaagaz Ki Kashti".

The tagline "Drinks & Memories" subtly yet powerfully brings out the essence of the brand. The marketing campaign that they came up with was in perfect sync with the product line. The copy was written and voiced by renowned poet & lyricist Gulzar. His sonorous voice with the background of the Malgudi Days theme music is enough to give anyone goosebumps. I will give a link to the TVC for you to relish at the end of this article.

Mother Dairy

Maa Jaisi

So simple yet so effective. This is one of the shortest taglines but it communicates a lot. Similes are a fairly common source of taglines but I am yet to see a more powerful use of one than this one. All the qualities like purity, love, care etc get subsumed in that one word "Maa". Mother Dairy's latest campaign for Mother's Day extends that idea to not just mothers but also to people who take care of others like a mother.

Why it works so well is because it unconsciously conjures up the image of the reader's mom in his / her mind - an image which is invariably associated with purity and selflessness. On top of that the brand name itself is Mother Dairy and this brand-tagline combo delivers a double whammy of maternal feeling and love which is difficult to ignore.

Onida

Neighbour's Envy, Owner's Pride

Enough of mush! Now lets get evil!

During the late 80s and early 90s, before the arrival of satellite television, very few homes in India had TVs. People used to flock to the houses of their neighbours, who owned TV sets, to watch popular serials like Ramayana and Mahabharata. Needless to say ownership of a TV made you respected in your neighborhood. You could get away with a lot if you owned a TV in those days. Most of the old TVs were black & white monitors encased in wooden boxes while Onida TVs looked sleek and modern. Onida played on the jealousy that these owners inspired among their not so privileged neighbours.

While the tagline worked on the haves to instill pride in their purchase, for the have-nots it called them out on their latent negative emotions and goaded them into buying their own Onida TV. Furthermore, the brand mascot dressed up as the devil gave an unmistakable visual identity to the brand. Onida means devil in Japanese. As a child I used to be a bit scared of this devil character but he didn't seem to care much for scaring us, he just kept fawning over his Onida TV.

Now, years later, I wonder if the tagline was too angrezi for that era and maybe a Hindi / vernacular rendition of the same idea might have worked better? Let me know in the comments if you have any creative ideas on this.

Coca Cola

Thanda Matlab Coca Cola

The Indian cola wars were no less intriguing than their original US counterparts and I will cover them in an article someday. Pepsi re-entered the Indian market in 1990 with "Yehi hai right choice baby" which was an Indianised version of the original by Ray Charles' "You got the right one baby". Coke re-entered India in 1993 with "Always Coca Cola". The two behemoths kept butting heads notably when Coke sponsored the 1996 Cricket World Cup becoming the official drink of the World Cup. In a memorable bit of ambush marketing Pepsi countered with their campaign titled "Nothing Official About It".

Anyways after these eventful years Coke finally hit the right note with "Thanda matlab Coca Cola". The insight being that 'thanda' literally meant cool/cold but in common parlance it meant a cold drink. For instance people always asked guests "Kya piyenge aap - chai ya thanda?". Thanda in this context would refer to any cool drink like nimbu pani, sherbet, jaljeera etc. This insightful tagline, combined with Aamir Khan's tapori character, made Coca Cola synonymous with thanda.

Many brands have tried equating themselves with the category, for instance Radio City's tagline "FM bole toh Radio City" but this one packs the most fizz due the consumer insight about use of the word thanda. I wonder if there is any connection between this tagline and that of Thums Up - "Taste the thunder (thanda)" as both brands were owned by the same company.

Lux Underwear Baniyan

Ye andar ki baat hai

What's better than a pun? A bilingual pun! Andar ki baat is a phrase in Hindi which means insider information of which only a select few are aware. Andar ki baat can also refer to andar ke kapde (clothes worn on the inside). To top that "andar" and "under" are similar words in different languages. Plus the original ad is quite funny with the garrulous wife Tabassum describing the features of the ideal men's underwear in excruciating detail to the shopkeeper Tiku Talsania while her exasperated husband Gufi Paintal tries to simplify matters by saying "Bas kar bhagywan, bhaisaab hamen Lux ke underwear baniyan chahiyen." It ends with a cute boy sitting at the cash register uttering the tagline and Harish Bhimani's baritone then takes over to deliver the brand name.

Come to think of it, the Rs. 8500 Crore men's underwear market, has historically been quite a creative category with multiple interesting taglines from the jocular "Aap Rupa ki underwear pehnoge to Rupa kya pehnegi" to the suggestive "Ye to bada toing hai".

Thanks for reading this far. We have covered 6 taglines and I think that's enough for today. Please let me know in the comments which obvious no-brainers I have missed and I will include them in the next part.