Bisleri promotes spicy, fizzy variant...

In a run-up to a bigger campaign, Bisleri is promoting its masala soda variant in Mumbai's OOH space.

Along bustling Mumbai's busiest roads, a glance skywards reveals a new line of posters by Bisleri. The brand isn't advertising for its packaged drinking water. Instead, the billboards contain 'pop' art style artwork and advertise for Bisleri Spyci - a product which is the brand's take on masala soda - an Indian drink that used to be popular with the masses.

The agency that has worked with Bisleri to conceptualise and create this campaign is Ogilvy's 82.5 Communications - a boutique creative agency that specialises in working with Indian brands. Interestingly, it was the agency that helped with the conceptualisation and creation of the product as well. "Bisleri has created a very unique soft drink specially for the Indian palette. Taking a cue from the spices flavouring this soft drink, we named it Spyci. And then we operated on the simple insight that as Indians, we all love a bit of masala - both in our lives and F&B. Hence, the tagline for Bisleri Spyci became - 'Jiyo Masala Maar Ke'," says Anuraag Khandelwal, executive creative director and creative head, Mumbai, 82.5 Communications.

Over email, Khandelwal tells us that the core TG that the brand was looking to appeal to was the age group of 16-32 and that the billboards have strategically been placed in parts of Mumbai that have the highest visibility with this group. "The brief from the brand was to simply break through the clutter. A lot has been done in the CSD category, especially in outdoor. We wanted to break that clutter with something very simple and effective. We chose to keep it dramatic, stylish and young. OOH is just one of the mediums we have started with for now. It will be followed up with a digital/ TV campaign," he adds.

To review the campaign and the effort that went into creating the artwork, we spoke to Ananda Ray, creative head, Rediffusion. Ray says he liked the overall look and feel of the campaign and found the artwork to be quite eye-catching. "I haven't tried the product yet, but it's reminiscent of the masala soda we used to drink. I wasn't too fond of it personally, but I know quite a few people who'd get quite nostalgic over a drink/flavour like this one..." he says.

"The branding is very 'cartoony', and in your face. I love the dynamism of the artwork. An interesting detail on the artwork was the foam on top of the bottle. It was a nice little visual detail that will clarify any doubts that people might have on whether it's a soda or not, given the fact that it's a product from the house of Bisleri," he says.

He adds that it would make sense for the brand to follow up the efforts on the billboards with posters/visuals at the points of sales of the product in order to strengthen the association of the soda with the brand.