Fevistik: Copy act

In its latest campaign, Pidilite decides to wage war against competing and fake brands with the clever use of lookalikes to emphasise its originality.

Lookalikes should not be taken lightly and Fevistik's latest campaign proves this. After nearly two years since its last campaign that showed the brand's qualities, Pidilite's new campaign reiterates the brand as the only original glue stick in the market. And, it does so by using lookalikes of Sachin Tendulkar and Salman Khan.

The campaign takes on the competitor and fake glue sticks that are available in the market. Conceptualised by Ogilvy & Mather, Mumbai, the two films are set in what looks like a stationery shop. In the film titled Duplicate, the owner of the store, 'Golmatol', and his assistant are visibly stumped when they see a Sachin Tendulkar-lookalike wearing the sky blue jersey walk into the store and ask for a glue stick. When the shopkeeper's assistant puts a glue stick on the counter, the character is aghast and asks, "Kya main aisa aadmi dikhta hoon jo duplicate cheez use karega (Do you think I look like a person who uses duplicate products)?' He then adds, "Original glue stick, Fevistik." The shopkeeper admonishes his assistant and quickly produces the brand.

In another creative, also on similar lines, a Salman Khan lookalike dressed like Chulbul Pandey (the role played by Khan in Dabangg2) breaks into a jig when he hears the ringtone of the shopkeeper's mobile phone. He, too, asks the duplicate stick to be replaced by the original one. The tongue-in-cheek humour is hard to miss in both ad films.

Anurag Agnihotri, group creative director, Ogilvy & Mather explains that the idea was to make people ask for the original glue stick brand, which is Fevistik. "Fevistik is generic to the product category and has a monopoly over it. But of late, Pidilite has received feedback that many other brands (China made) or glue sticks having similar names are taking advantage of Fevistik's brand presence in the market. So, the client wanted us to come up with something to counter this," he states, adding that the emphasis was to make the brand stand out as the original glue stick product.

The campaign will run for six weeks, with the TVCs being aired in six languages - Hindi, Tamil, Telugu, Malayalam, Kannada and Bengali. Pidilite will also carry out on-ground activities such as a collage contest, 'Who is your original hero', for kids in around 1,700 schools across India. Participants in the contest are required to create a collage on a given piece of cardboard and submit it to win a prize, says Vivek Verma, vice-president, Ogilvy & Mather, Mumbai.

Asked if the Dabangg2 reference was intentional, considering the movie has a song based on Pidilite's Fevicol, Verma says, "We needed an iconic treatment, which people remembered and enjoyed."

The campaign targets SEC A and B, and children.

Mock up!

So, has the use of 'copies' helped reiterate the brand's point to 'stick' with the original? Worked beautifully, says Charles Victor, NCD, Law & Kenneth. "It's mad, it's entertaining and it makes a point that, quite literally, sticks! Here's a piece of communication that will really get consumed when it's on air. The use of lookalikes is integral to the campaign but that's the whole point of the campaign, isn't it?" he adds.

According to Arun Raman, executive vice-president, strategic planning, Lowe India, the planning input is strategically intelligent. "In order to position others as duplicates, use duplicates to make that point. And, in such an exaggerated manner, that the desired response is 'this guy is so poor in imitating Salman/Sachin'. On top of it, when that not-so-good Sachin mimic actually says if he looks like someone who uses a duplicate product, it is so incongruous that you agree with the brand, even as you ridicule the person. Point delivered without product windows and brand comparisons," he says.

The target audience, Raman ventures, is office-goers and school kids. Hence, the idea needed to be clever to make one's point to this audience, for whom "any brand will do".