The latest Frooti campaign christened " the magic of Frooti" is different from the
earlier campaigns. Frooti is the home grown challenger for the Coca-Cola’s Maaza
in the mango juice category. Incidentally both Maaza and Frooti belonged to
Parle’s Ramesh Chauhan. 
Chauhan made the biggest marketing mistake in the corporate
Indian history when he sold Limca, Thums up and Maaza brands to Coca-Cola. That
too at a very low price. Well that how life pans out. 
Even when Maaza and Frooti were with the Parle group the positioning was
very clear. Frooti was seen as a children drink with its funky tetra pack.
Maaza was more an adult drink for drinkers in the 20 plus category. 
Frooti has come a long way. It did the very innovative Digen Verma campaign.
It experimented with the ultra-small tetra pack of 65 ml costing Rs 2.50/-. But lately Frooti realized that it needs to
move away from its predominantly tetra pack, child targeted positioning. 
So in comes the funky new bottle of Frooti. To get the eyes balls and for increased visibility Frooti brought in the darling of the masses – Shah Rukh Khan. So far so good. But the latest advertisement campaign "the magic of Frooti" of Frooti leaves the viewers bemused and confused.
The advertisement opens with Shah Rukh Khan hungrily gulping down a Frooti.
He is watched by many footballers including some very young children. The young
children are salivating but Shah Rukh Khan keeps on gulping down the Frooti. He
drains the bottle and the crowds of footballers come out of their stupor. They break
out into huge grins (what for?). The final shot of the advertisement is that of
the football toppling a full Frooti bottle.
This is a classic case of a creative running wild. There is no story line. No emotional connect or a nice jingle to remember and hum. Shah Rukh is totally wasted and Frooti is alienating its core customers – the young children. If the ideas was to attract new customers (making Maaza drinkers to shift to Frooti) the ideas is still born. Maaza drinkers are not given solid enough reasons to shift from Maaza to Frooti. Frooti Definitely need to rethink its creative strategy.
Sir, I think Parle is trying to compete directly with Slice rather than Maaza. As, Slice is shown to be a highly tempting Mango drink and being endorsed by Katrina, Parle is trying to create a similar appeal with the new ad. And even I think the jingle used is quite attractive and attention seeking...
ReplyDeleteWhats your opinion on my thought about the ad.
Good one Rajesh, Jingle too is good. As long as it works everything is fine. All in fair in war and in corporate world.
ReplyDeleteI am sorry Dr but I go with your first post. I have watched the ad dozensof time and it always leaves me bewildered. What make the childrn happy all of a sudden ? A waste of Sharukh .
ReplyDeleteSure Umesh, That is why I wrote the blog item in the first place. A total waste of the entire advertisement. There is no big idea and nothing to make it memorable except the jingle.
ReplyDeleteNow I understand there were 2 versions of the ad. Frooti expects you to have seen the longer version ( which Is never shown now - apparently was aired earlier ) which tells the story in a clearer fashion. Unfortunately what is shown in the IPL matches is the confusing cut version which is thoroughly badly done .
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