Paras Ghee hits a sweet 50, marks India's landmarks with jalebis

Paras Ghee has released a campaign to commemorate its 50 years.  The TVC created by Rediffusion Y&R went on air on 28 December and will run until end-January. The film celebrates India’s major achievements in the last 50 years.

The stated objective of the communication is to strengthen Paras Dairy’s position in the North markets and create awareness about the brand in the other States.

The ad film is set at the ‘Famous Old Jalebi wala’ store in the bylanes of Chandni Chowk in 'old' Delhi. The film then shows a man using Paras Ghee to make his jalebis (Indian sweets). He recounts the historic moments in India’s last fifty years through the shape of the jalebis. Cheered on by spectators, he makes jalebis in the shape of a trophy to recall India’s 1983 World Cup cricket win; a television, with the logo of Doordarshan; a tiara, for the Miss World victory, and so on. Onlookers devour the jalebis while celebrating India’s achievements. The film ends saying: “Pichle pachaas saalon se, hamari saari khushi ka hissa. Paras Ghee - Jeeney ka swad.”

The soundtrack of the commercial is a mix of qawwali, Punjabi dhol, and a bit of fusion to represent with the diverse cultures present in India.

On the campaign, Chraneeta Mann, executive creative director and national creative head, Rediffusion Y&R, said, “Well the purpose was to bring back the nostalgia of a past celebrated with Paras Ghee, travel the journey to the present and make the brand top of mind again. For this, we used a pretty ambitious visual device of creating jalebis that depicted events of great nationalistic significance. After multiple tests conducted with jalebis cooked around wire frames, on glass sheets, a search for steady-handed halwais, and a lot of calories later, we combined all the methods to make the jalebis seem as real as possible. It took us more than month of research. But we were very clear that we would not resort to any CG and would make this happen in as natural a manner as possible - just as naturally pure as Paras Ghee.”

“The commercial was a challenge, a bit of an unknown space to venture into in terms of execution, where we often wondered if we had bitten off more jalebi than we could chew. But all of us thoroughly enjoyed being part of its creation,” she added.

Unplugged moments:

The landmark events depicted in the film were picked through a process of research. Events that evoked the maximum nostalgic pride over the past 50 years were incorporated into the film.

Credits:

Client: Paras Dairy
Marketing head: Sanjay Sinha
Brand manager: Sumit Mohan
Creative agency: Rediffusion Y&R
Executive creative director and National creative head: Chraneeta Mann
Copywriter: Arvind Murali
Art director: Sarabjit Singh
Business head: Amit Ghildiyal
Production house: Equinox Films
Director: Ram Madhwani
Media agency: GroupM