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'Pran jaaye par Pulse na jaaye', is the tagline.
Pass Pass Pulse - DS group's kaccha aam-flavoured hard-boiled candy with a tangy twist which took the Indian candy market by storm, is all set to capture people's imagination once again with its first television commercial.
The much-awaited campaign which will be released over the weekend has been created by J. Walter Thompson. 'Pran jaaye par Pulse na jaaye', goes the tagline.
Pulse (priced at Re.1) made news last year for becoming a 100 crore brand within a year of its launch in February 2015. Today, this figure stands at 300 crore. Pulse Kachha Aam was followed by Pulse Guava and Pulse Orange with a tangy core. A Pineapple variant will also be launched in the next couple of days.
DS Group is also going to launch the ready-to-drink mango beverage, 'Pulse Mango - Masala Maar Ke' in Delhi and parts of Punjab later this month. The drink, being an extension of brand Pulse, will carry forward the tangy innovation to take on the likes of Frooti and Maaza in the market this summer. The company began test marketing the product around five months back.
Timed right
For a brand like Pulse which tasted extraordinary success in its category without any high-decibel, mainstream campaigns, one wonders what additional purpose this TV campaign will serve.
It is important for brands to keep communicating with their consumers, and in the case of Pulse, he argues, the initial push given by word-of-mouth is now over in the sense that people still love it, but they don't have anything new to say about it.
"With Pulse, it was the tangy centre that got people hooked. Of course, more flavours have been/can be released. Innovation is one way to keep conversations going, but with the increase in competition and fatigue, advertising can prove to be a shot in the arm," states Abraham.
Sharing his thoughts on the prospects of Pulse Mango, he adds, "most well-known mango drinks in the market are sweet and they talk of the goodness of the kind of mango in them. But for Pulse, the proposition is going to be the 'masala'. If it stays true to its character, to the innovation it stands for, I think it will do well."