First TVC for Pulse candy to air over the weekend

'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.

The commercial outlines the extent to which people will go to hide their Pulse candy from others and the extent to which they will go to get their hands on one. In the ad, a gang of boys pranks a friend who is fast asleep, by raising a false fire alarm. The house must be vacated, but before running to save his life, the panic stricken guy reaches out for his stash of Pulse candy hidden in the TV remote, the laptop's DVD drive and similar other absurd places.

This campaign is targeted at 15-34-year-olds from SEC A, B and C. Shashank Surana, vice president - new product development, DS Group says that the TG for Pulse is clearly demarcated into 'consumption' and 'communication' TGs wherein the former incudes everyone while the latter is the youth.

"India is a young country. The youth are not only highest in terms of numbers, they are today also the decision makers in many homes. The product appeals to them because it brings back memories of their childhood. They have also been the strongest advocates of Pulse on social media," he shares.

Pulse is among the most successful examples of brands built on word-of-mouth in recent times, with social media facilitating the reach. While the company pushed the candy through in-store promotions and outdoor ads, its fans were active in the online world. Talking about his expectations from the campaign in an
earlier interaction with afaqs!
, Surana stated that advertising is not going to drive sales. It will be reinforcement with an objective to own the innovation Pulse stands for. He hopes that this 360-degree campaign will further strengthen the consumer connect and take the brand's popularity to the next level.

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.

Saji Abraham, executive director at Lowe Lintas, however, says that there's no one model to recommend when a brand must consider advertising in its life-cycle. "By that logic, one can also ask why is YouTube or Starbucks advertising now. Once brands reach a critical mass, mass media is perhaps the best way of consolidating and reaching out to more people," he avers.

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."