Carpenters are working in a shop, which looks like a makeshift human settlement. A chicken is clucking, a radio is playing songs on request and one of the workers is engrossed in preparing “anda bhurji” (egg burji).
As he picks one egg after the other and keeps pouring the yolk in the cooking pan, he faces a sudden challenge. He can’t break another egg that he lays his hand on. He tries every possible means to break it, including using a utensil and a hammer. Ultimately, the egg slips from his hand and punctures a hole in the earthen pot being used for preparing “anda bhurji”. Amid the unfolding mess, he spots the chicken eating its feed from a Fevicol pack. It’s an epiphanic moment for the bewildered carpenter.
The ad film, which was released in 1996, created a splash. Veteran adman and Ogilvy’s chief advisor Piyush Pandey told Storyboard18 how this film gave the freedom to Fevicol to chart into diverse territories as Pidilite Industries, the parent company of the adhesive brand, mounted aggressive campaigns.
Genesis of the big idea
Madhukar Parekh, chairman, Pidilite Industries, was the client, and Pidilite Industries, parent company of Fevicol, has been a long standing client of Ogilvy India since 1989.
Prasoon Pandey, ad filmmaker, told Storyboard18 that Piyush wanted to bring lateral thinking — solving problems through indirect and creative approach — and move away from hackneyed brand positioning on the lines of “two blocks of wood stuck by Fevicol.”
So, what was the creative spark?
Piyush came up with the big idea.
“What if we show a chicken eating its feed from a Fevicol pack where the egg laid is so solid that it is unbreakable?” Prasoon gleefully lapped up Piyush’s idea. It was Prasoon, who suggested the scenario revolving around carpenters in a human settlement where they eat, sleep and cook there.
Prasoon threw the radio in the mix. Those were the days — Piyush and Prasoon recalled — how radio would play songs on listeners’ request and their names would be broadcast before the numbers would go on air. Here, Prasoon decided to put the name of his director friends’ which included Prahlad Kakkar, Kailash Surendranath, Ram Madhvani and Sumantra Ghosal, where their initial names were interchanged.
Prasoon remembered that Indian advertising in the mid-1990s was steeped in Western creative mould, when this concept was finding its way to the drawing board. Models had their task cut out: to get into the skin of carpenters and plumbers. But their looks belied them. Soon, the filmmaker made up his mind. He cast a character to look the part of a carpenter and lend authenticity to the ad film, whose target audience were housekeepers.
The thought was conveyed to Parekh, and he was instantly sold out on the idea. Sitaram, a junior artist supplier was cast in the role of the carpenter, who is seen preparing “anda bhurji” in the ad film, which was shot by cinematographer R.M. Rao.
As the carpenter goes on breaking one agg after the other, the audience, as Prasoon put it, was agog with excitement. It waited for the rest of the eggs to break with unflinching monotony. But Prasoon had other ideas: of an egg breaking the earthen pot.
But how does one execute such a concept, when special effects were in their infancy in India. Fortunately, Prasoon got around the technological constraint. A solid acrylic egg was created, and 20 pots were brought in as a contingency measure: if the target could not be accomplished in one take.
But, to everyone’s amazement, the target was achieved in the first take, and the egg punctured a hole instead, which Prasoon termed as “beautiful”.
The ad film had consciously avoided driving home the over-the-top message: Fevicol has the strongest bond. Prasoon had left it to the imagination of the public to fill in the blanks and endorse its “strong bond” image.
Upon its release, the ad film was run for up to 12 times a year in line with Parekh’s suggestion in a bid to improve the brand’s total recall.
The reception of the ad film was exceptional, and resonated well amongst carpenters as well, Prasoon fondly signed off.
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