What transpires when a brand replaces 007’s stylish Walther P99 pistol with a pan masala box…
By TEAM IMPACT
Pierce Brosnan and pan masala. Did anyone ever imagine the Irish star, known for his roles as James Bond 007, endorsing pan masala? Well, the country was shaken as well as stirred to wake up on Friday morning and see Pierce Brosnan as the face of Pan Bahar on the front page of the Times of India. Soon, he stared out from hoardings and bus-stands too. Not surprisingly, there was a Twitter storm with many questioning the logic of engaging Brosnan to endorse pan masala, and others just making a joke out of it.
Social media was literally on fire on Friday, when the ad was released. Some expressed shock, some were amused and others constantly checked the once popular Bond’s Twitter handle to see if he really owned up to endorsing Pan Bahar, because no one could think of even a remote connection between him and the brand in question. Whether roping in the international star was a commercially viable move for the makers of Pan Bahar, only the subsequent sales of the brand can tell, but it is obviously a clever trick to extend the reach of a category like pan masala. Besides, the brand’s aim was to link success to a man who is the very personification of perfection…
“I am very excited to be chosen as the brand ambassador of a brand like Pan Bahar. Pan Bahar, like Bond, has stood the test of time and is a winner in its own right. It has got class. That’s something that never goes out of style,” says Pierce Brosnan.
The big question that everyone is asking at this point is - what exactly is Pan Bahar? Calling itself the world’s most expensive pan masala, attempting to sway the target audience by roping in a star of Brosnan’s calibre... Will the newly appointed brand ambassador end up alienating the existing consumers of Pan Bahar or will he help in expanding the target base of the brand by leaps and bounds? Let’s wait and watch.
PAN BAHAR: THE BRAND STORY
Ashok & Co. Pan Bahar Limited is known as a primary manufacturer of ethnic Indian mouth fresheners (pan masala) and tobacco. Known to the world as ‘the heritage pan masala’, the company has a history of more than 50 years of leadership and belief in excellence of taste.
The first effort to make a pan masala was made by Shri Ratanlal Jain in a small house in Kanpur in 1936. At that time, the home counter was the only point of sale. It was run by family members.
The foundation of a company was laid by Shri Prakash Chand Jain in 1966. His passion for pan led him to invent a delicacy called Pan Bahar pan masala, for which he travelled around the country and procured the best quality ingredients from the richest farms to create a perfect blend of these ingredients. Thus the brand was born.
To keep alive the belief in exclusivity and exquisiteness of taste, A&C- Pan Bahar Ltd. launched ‘the world’s most expensive pan masala’ Pan Bahar Crystal in 2012 to offer a unique experience to connoisseurs of taste.
The brand set the trend of celebrity endorsements, to begin with, signing on stylish Bollywood icons like Feroz and Fardeen Khan and Saif Ali Khan as its brand ambassadors. Pan Bahar then took this leap of faith, signing up DDB Mudra to steer the campaign that links success to a man who is the personification of perfection. The positioning was ‘the Bond of all pan masalas’.
With this campaign, Pan Bahar also hoped to leave the other brands in this category far behind. It created an energizing plot full of fast cars, macho men, stylish women and a sharp, stylish and handsome Pierce in a slick TVC and a chic ad campaign.
The DDB Mudra team shot this campaign on location in Austin, Texas. Punning on 007, the brand launched its campaign on 07 of October, 2016 and is presenting Brosnan as the first Hollywood face of the ad in his stylish new avatar.
Our Obsession with Celebrity Endorsements
By Prabhakar Mundkur
?Chief Mentor, HGS Interactive
There is very little doubt that India as a market has always been very celebrity-smitten. Of course, all stars are put on a pedestal all over the world and you might argue that the West is as crazy about football as we are about cricket and we idolize our Bollywood stars as much the West idolizes Hollywood. But I don’t think it is a fad to invite celebrities to family weddings and have them prancing around for a hefty fee. At least not yet!
When people in New Delhi opened their morning newspapers today, most were taken aback to see a greying, bearded Pierce Brosnan proudly holding a pack of Pan Bahar. The film that goes with the campaign showed Brosnan in the role of a Bollywood Bond, attacking crusaders a bit like Don Quixote, swishing his box of Pan Bahar like a sword, while a female Sancho Panza coyly looks on with stunned admiration. The film ends with him taking the position of the Bollywood SPECTRE leader and dislodging him from his chair in a quick motion while his opponents bite the dust. A stunt that Bruce Lee would have found difficult to emulate. Brosnan ends it with ‘Class never goes out of style’. And while I am sure the Pan Bahar target spans across socio-economic groups, the Brosnan ad quite simply stunned everyone. If the objective was that those who have Pan Bahar needed to be re-assured that eating Pan Bahar is a classy social symbol, then the point was unfortunately missed.
For example, my friend’s driver in Delhi, who is a loyal Pan Bahar user, looked quizzically at the morning newspaper in his boss’s hand and said, “Yeh aadmi kaun hai?” When he was educated about the man being a famous Hollywood star, he said, “Maine socha yeh koi Raja hai’ja hai”. Very soon and before you knew it, the ad had triggered the funny bone for Twitter users who had a field day outdoing each other on social media humour.
Some like Harsha Bhogle asked a very pertinent question. He tweeted: ‘Can advertising and brand experts tell us if going viral but becoming a laughing stock is good brand strategy?’
Others were raising some deep and pertinent questions. Since the product is banned for sale, marketing or manufacture in several Indian States, some people questioned the ethics of advertising such a product with Pierce Brosnan. Others wondered if Pierce Brosnan might have been aware whether the government has accepted the recommendations of a Parliamentary panel to impose stringent accountability on celebrities for endorsing products and for misleading advertisements. Celebrity brand ambassadors could soon have to think twice before endorsing products that make unrealistic claims, which can fetch them a jail term up to five years, apart from a penalty of Rs 50 lakh. Section 17 of the revised Consumer Protection Bill defines “endorsement” as any message, verbal statement or any other form of depiction to show a celebrity’s “likeness” for a product, which leads the consumer to believe that it reflects the celebrity’s opinion, finding or experience. Brosnan was quoted in the official press release as saying, “I am very excited to be chosen as the brand ambassador of a brand like Pan Bahar. Pan Bahar, like Bond, has stood the test of time and is a winner in its own right. It has got class. That’s something that never goes out of style.” So one can only hope that he knows the laws of the land.
So what is driving the new fascination with fading Hollywood and football stars? Especially for inherently very Indian products? Says Hamsini Shivkumar of Leapfrog Strategy Consulting, “Pan masala as a category has often done this - of showing how the humble Indian product has conquered the world; the Indian businessman beats the angrez in a boardroom battle, etc. Otherwise, it could be a simple attempt to glamourize the humble desi paan-wala product by using the ultimate status symbol of masculinity - the White handsome Hollywood star. So, is it purely a fascination that Indian entrepreneurs have with foreign celebrities? Or a deep desire to create global brands in India? It is difficult to tell.
Only a few months ago, we saw Zinedine Zidane dominate a similar large space in our daily newspapers. Obviously, there was a need for force-fitting Zidane into the ad. 'Coach to the World's best Players', it said. It is possible that most Indians only find him a familiar face at best. Asia's third-largest economy has never made it to the FIFA World Cup despite a 1.3 billion strong population, high economic growth rates and a sports-mad public. It has only qualified once, by default for the 1950 tournament in Brazil, but that too ended up withdrawing due to financial constraints.
The Indian marketer’s obsession with celebrities is well known. But is our obsession moving from the sublime to the ridiculous? If an Indian marketer lacks an idea for his brand, the easiest way to make up for the lack of an idea seems to be to have a celebrity. Or in other words, the celebrity becomes the advertising idea. As in the case with the Pierce Brosnan Pan Bahar ad, where James Bond makes the story.
