It was the early 1980s. In a conversation with Storyboard18, actor Ankitha Jhaveri recalled that she was barely two and a half years old and was late to the auditions for a brand’s commercial. However, the screening team was like, “Okay! Let’s audition one last child and then we will pack up.” The very next day, they called Jhaveri’s parents and said, “We’d like to do the entire campaign on her.” The brand, of course, was the soft drink concentrate Rasna. And the rest, as they say, is history.
Ogilvy & Mather – Rasna – Mudra Communications
Ogilvy & Mather or O&M looked after the affairs of the soft drink brand Rasna, and Tata Group’s home appliances company Voltas was in charge of the distribution of the brand. Rasna, which was previously known as ‘Jaffe’ , was actively available only in the Western region of India, i.e., Bombay and Ahmedabad.
Areez Pirozsha Khambatta, a flavourist, had started Pioma Industries, the manufacturing unit of Jaffe. Khambatta came up with a soft drink concentrate, which was marketed under the Jaffe name.
When the brand decided to pan-India, O&M suggested it be renamed Rasna, arguing that ‘Jaffe’ sounded too foreign. ‘Rasna’ comes from the word ‘ras’ or ‘juice’.
Prriya Raj, former account director at Mudra Communications, said that the first Rasna commercial was the preparation commercial executed by O&M in the print format. The commercial showed 32 glasses with the ‘son’ sipping Rasna from those glasses with the ‘mother’ seated next to him.
Then, the brand decided to change creative heads, in this case.
No longer ‘Only Vimal’
O&M was based in Bombay, and Rasna’s roots were in Ahmedabad. O&M was the agency of Voltas. Hence, Rasna did not have the significant say, Voltas did.
“If an agency is based in Bombay, they would come, say, once in a month. And there would be some issue with that long-distance relationship. So, when they wanted to go independent, there was no reason for them to stick to O&M,” Raj said. Hence, the company took the decision to handle the marketing operations independently from Ahmedabad.
At that time, Ashok Vithlani, who led the marketing operations of the brand at Pioma Industries, happened to meet an accountant from Mudra Communications. Vithlani mentioned that they were looking for an agency because they were now handling everything from Ahmedabad. His next question was, “Will Mudra be interested?”
The accountant told AG Krishnamurthy (the founder of Mudra Communications who was popularly referred to by his initials) and Krishnamurthy had a meeting with them. The agency at that time was handling only Vimal, and was the in-house agency of Reliance Industries.
Krishnamurthy had a talk with late Dhirubhai Ambani (founder of Reliance Industries) and he agreed to it, according to a media report.
Thus, Rasna became the second account after Vimal to be handled by Mudra Communications and the first outside account. The agency also had experience in handling film and television advertising.
No child’s play
As Piruz Khambatta, group chairman, Rasna International and son of Areez recollected in a conversation with Storyboard18, the brief given to Mudra Communications was “to connect the brand with the emotions of the child”.
This was the backdrop to the ‘I Love You Rasna’ campaign. In the advertisement, Jhaveri is seen conversing with a bunch of toys, holding a tulip glass containing a drink made with Rasna concentrate and trying to get her ‘friends’ to take a sip.
Raj reminisced that it was a scratch commercial, a rough creative before the final film, that was released. Since it was difficult to capture a child’s expression, the scratch version was considered, and it came out well in terms of the expressions of the child artist. Hence, AGK decided to continue with the commercial.
Upon its release on Doordarshan in 1984, the commercial was well-received and led to the immediate distribution and take-up of Rasna all over India. The advertisement also cast a huge appeal on mothers on a larger scale.
Main competitors
The Khambatta family always held that Rasna is a family brand. At the time of Rasna’s launch, bottled soft drinks were almost luxuries, and people were on the lookout for cheaper alternatives that at the same time were appealing to the palate. So they would look for a branded soft drink at a very good cost.
Hence, Rasna was launched in the price segment of Rs 2-4. The soft drink concentrate that could be dissolved in water with spoonfuls of sugar was an economical substitute. Khambatta, who considered water to be Rasna’s biggest competitor, also cited homemade products as its rivals. Sharbats, syrups (especially Rooh Afza) and squashes, and further up the value chain, bottled soft drinks like Duke’s, Thums Up, Campa Cola, etc, were the other players in the market.
Expanding, Khambatta divided the brand and its competition into four phases. In the mid-1980s, there were few to no multinational companies in the country. Hence, the main concern was to ensure that the brand entered homes. As Khambatta put it, the communication had more to do with being a part of birthday parties.
Then, in the 1990s, the brand began to tap the flavour route after gaining some market share. In the 2000s, the brand began doing ads with celebrities. “So every year is a separate strategy. Sometimes it’s a flavour strategy, sometimes it’s a consumer promotion strategy, sometimes it’s a celebrity-led strategy,” he added.
The media plan
Much of the spending on the campaign, which was essentially rolled out in English and Hindi, was on television. For the ‘I Love You Rasna’ campaign, the brand ran an extensive women’s campaign because the brand wanted to reach out to everyone.
Raj recollected that children’s magazines, women’s magazines, general interest magazines and film magazines followed by newspapers were predominant parts of the media plan. He added, “Women’s magazines were considered because mothers were a target through whom children could be reached for they were a target audience.”
The farewells
After a few campaigns, Jhaveri was discontinued, the former account director of Mudra Communications said. The reason: children grow very fast.
Since television was the primary ad medium for Rasna, another child of the appropriate age group to continue the campaign. After Jhaveri, Yesha Maheshwari from Ahmedabad was selected based on a video test where she turned out to be photogenic.
After her contract with Rasna ended, Jhaveri went on to do commercials for brands like Videocon. Then, at the age of 18, Jhaveri was launched into Tollywood by writer and director YVS Chaudhary. Jhaveri recollected that she was cast based on, “Oh, are you the little Rasna girl?”
Rasna’s association with Mudra Communications lasted till 2011 or 2012. In 2011, Mudra was acquired by Omnicom Group, which merged with DDB Worldwide and was rebranded DDB Mudra Group.
I Love You Rasna: Success factors
Rasna holds a market share of 80-90 percent in the concentrate category. Khambatta attributed the success of the campaign to its apt timing. He said, “Those were different days. People didn’t have too many choices. The creative was fresh, the model was fresh. We are talking of India just coming up. People were learning what to do, and were getting some disposable income. The timing was correct.”