Bingo sets your heart on fire

The new TVC from the whacky Bingo is an old time love story, filled with a rendezvous on the balcony and flying kisses

Firefighters, Feng shui crystals, language classes, cooking classes and mad scientists – Bingo is famous for its whacky TV commercials. The snack brand from ITC is more than two years old now and the competition is sure feeling the crunch.

Burning love

The latest campaign from Bingo is for its chip called Red Chilli Bijli.

It opens on a balcony, where a girl is obviously waiting for her lover while munching on a packet of Bingo. The boy steps out into his balcony to find her upset at him. A very 80's filmy song ensues, that uses a generous dose of English and Hindi lyrics. Through gestures and expressions, they make up and he asks her for a kiss. Though shy at first, she blows him a kiss. Very deftly, he pretends to catch it and save it in his pocket.

In the next instant, his pocket is on fire because of the 'hot' Bingo Red Chilli Bijli that the girl had been munching on while waiting.

The team at Ogilvy Bengaluru was responsible for the creative idea and the film has been shot by Ayappa of Footcandle Films. Vipul Thakkar, senior creative director, wrote the jingle for the commercial.

The snack brand is in the stage of familiarising consumers with its existing flavours in the chip format.

Bingo launched 16 flavours in early 2007. Apart from the chip snacks, it is also available in formats such as khakra-like, pakora-like (live wires) and the Hatke Jhatke type.

A chip in time…

In the initial days, Bingo's task was to acclimatise probable consumers with a new snack on the block. For this, support from various mass media such as radio, outdoor and television was used. The next part was establishing the fact that Bingo has the maximum variety of flavour combinations, including Chatkila Nimbu Achar and Tandoori Paneer Tikka.

Later, individual formats were highlighted and that is where the Mad Angles and Hatke Jhatke (street fight) ads fitted in.

For the chip variant, the first ad was about how a man and a fire fighting machine were combined for the Red Chilli Bijli flavour. This took home the message of 'No Confusion. Great Combination', the brand's tagline. This was followed by the Mad Scientist series, where crunchiness and another flavour were part of the highlight.

In the previous campaign, a new flavour under the chip variant, called International cream and onion, was introduced. This campaign's objective is to talk about the better selling flavours.

Feeling hot hot hot

Amit Akali and Malvika Mehra, group creative directors at Ogilvy Bengaluru, say that the route taken with this film is a little twisted and over the top, as has been the case with all Bingo commercials.

However, unlike the previous communication which was crazy and mindless from the word go, this one builds on a love story and reveals the message of the product in the end.

Mehra reveals that the brief is a very basic one each time. It is centred on the format of the snack or the flavour and the agency is given a free hand to come up with eccentric ideas.

"With this one, we've misled you slightly before coming back to Bingo," says Akali. The set, reminiscent of the 1980's, was to add to the cliché.

Does is pack a crunch?

Titus Upputuru, executive creative director, Dentsu Marcom spots the shift from Bingo's usual mindlessness. "It's both bad and good," he says. Bad because you miss the usual Bingo madness. Good because if you are missing it, it means that Bingo has managed to associate itself with a tone and style of advertising which usually takes years for brands to achieve.

Pranvir Singh Mann, too, sees the lack of 'whackiness' but finds this ad appealing. The creative head of RK Swamy BBDO's Delhi office says, "A flavour like Chilli could have used a more 'chatpata' idea."

Upputuru also appreciates the OP Nayyar style of music and likes the detailing in the ad, such as "the singer clenches her teeth while saying 'beating'"

Have news to share? Write to us atnewsteam@afaqs.com