Wagh Bakri's attempt at 'wokeness'...

Wagh Bakri is an Indian tea company with a heritage that goes back to 1892. Their Mili chai brand focuses on delivering a strong, flavourful brew for Indian tea drinkers. In a quest to claim a share of the expanding market in its segment, a new national campaign for Mili tea is being launched across media by Triton Communications.

Parag Desai, executive director of Wagh Bakri elaborates on the company's strategy of building growth by focusing on selected segments and product lines. “We see Mili as an engine of growth and our focus remains on the consumer bringing a cup of our tea to her or his lips and being delighted by the experience. Everything else is an enabler of that outcome,'' he says. “We had initiated large scale consumer research to come up with sharp marketing strategy and consumer insights especially for northern markets,” he reveals.

“The tongue-in-cheek campaign is aimed at the fast growing demographic of young tea drinkers, now coming of age and making their own choices,” says Sam Hussaini, president of Triton Communications. He adds, “Tea is India's greatest social lubricant, and the pleasure of serving a great cuppa is as fulfilling to us Indians as enjoying it yourself. Our campaign leverages this insight in a surprising new manner while delivering the core product promise."

Ullas Chopra, national creative director, Triton Communications adds, “Tea is a category where a lot has been said and done. For us, the biggest challenge was to talk ‘taste’ in a fresh way. Tea is a ritual of bonding and conversations and that has been explored many times in advertising. We thought it would be fun to give a twist to the popular phrase ‘chai pe charcha’ and make the captivating taste come through by making the ‘Charcha’ all about the tea. It led to ‘Ab Chai pe hogi bas Mili ki charcha’. The situations reflect changing mores but are a fun way to connect to the audience.” The campaign started during Diwali on TV and social media and will later find its way to print and radio.

Ananda Ray of Rediffusion however finds the ads a bit predictable. He observes that there's 'client speak' found in the ads with words like Swaad and Anusaar. "I know it was meant to be natural, but it didn't seem that way to me. As far as the situations in the ad go, that didn't feel very new either, with the marriage situation and the counsellor set up," he says. He adds that it doesn't really feel like a new take on marriage or on chai.

"I'm not sure if they're even being woke in these ads. A woke person would take the situation with the marriage counsellor and feel this is the right time to walk away from the marriage. What's so woke about agreeing or disagreeing over a cup of chai anyway?" he asks. Ray points out that the ad is not actually talking about marriage or divorce. "The brand just put the actors in a divorce kind of set up because it suited the fact that they're supposed to disagree. They could've shown a young couple arguing over which movie to watch as well, but how do you show a cup of tea in that case? They're being correct, but it's not particularly interesting or exciting..." Ray signs off.

Credits:

Creative Agency: Triton Communications, Gurugram

Management: Sam Hussaini and Naveen Saraswat

National Creative Director: Ullas Chopra

Creative Director: Himanshu Prabhakar

Creative Group Head: Chandra Bhusan