Fevicol: Bonding best with humour

You can always anticipate the end, yet Fevicol commercials never fail to bring a smile to your face. The element of surprise laced with humour has become a part of these commercials. Following on the basic formula of Fevicol being the ultimate adhesive, the latest communication strategy has gone beyond positioning the brand merely for sticking plywood or being of use to carpenters.

“Presenting a slice of life and showing the one single property of bonding has become a successful way of communication for the brand,” says Rajesh Mehta, head, marketing, Fevicol Division.

The latest commercial, set in a Rajasthani village, shows a toddler hell bent on wandering around, much against his mother’s attempts to keep him in one place. In the background, the line goes… ‘Chhora tu athi aa (Come back, boy)!’ As soon as the mother sets the child down next to her and goes back to her work, the baby sets off all over again. Finally, tired, the mother makes him sit on a can of Fevicol – and she succeeds in her attempt to keep the child fixed to one place.

Abhijit Avasthi, group creative director, O&M, says, “The latest commercial belongs to the same genre as the earlier one on the bus. We have been toying with the idea of somebody sitting on a can and rolling out a commercial based on that. Somehow, we could not find an insightful script to go with it till we came up with this one.”

He adds, “We tried to give an earthy flavour to the commercial and keep it simple, single-minded and endearing at the same time.”

This is what the brand has been doing with elan over the years. So, if an unbreakable egg became an expression of the brand’s adhesive property because the hen was roosting on a can of Fevicol, it went a step further when it invaded the dream of a young bridegroom whose movement gets restricted because of a can of Fevicol kept near him. Then there was the commercial in which the shadow of a man gets stuck when he passes by a shop shutter with a Fevicol ad painted on it. The commercial of a bus overflowing with passengers, which manages to keep all the people safe on board because of Fevicol, garnered the awards as well. The strength of the brand was highlighted in the ‘Suicide’ commercial, where the stool breaks because it wasn’t stuck together with Fevicol.

Mehta says, “Bonding has become synonymous with Fevicol and the communication strategy has really worked for us. The brief has been consistent over the years, but the execution has changed. It is pure and simple and effectively communicates the strength of the brand.”

He adds, “Though tongue in cheek, the ad has managed to make the communication brilliantly iconic.”

Avasthi of O&M, who says he has practically been living the brand, explains, “It is difficult to use an expression again and again and still bring in the surprise element, but therein lies the challenge. You have to make people guess what the ending will be and weave in the element of humour.”

A perfect example of how Fevicol has become synonymous with bonding is highlighted by a radio spot that broke around the same time as the TVC. The spot, which goes on in a typical radio announcer’s voice, does not mention the brand at all, yet manages to communicate about the brand. It goes: ‘Doston aisa chipkaye ki nikle nahin. Aisa pakde ki choote nahin. Aisa jode ki toote nahin. Yeh sunke aapko kya naam aata hain, pause... Jee haan! Yeh usi ka vigyapan hain. (Friends, it sticks such that it will never come out. Its hold is such that it will never be torn apart. It binds such that it will never break. When you hear this commercial, what name comes to your mind? Yes! This is a commercial for the product you have in mind).’

© 2006 agencyfaqs!