Tata Tea is back with 'Jaago Re' ad after a 3 year gap

Called 'Alarm Bajne se Pehle Jaago Re', the campaign introduces an angry young female protagonist.

In the year 2008, Tata Tea for the first time introduced its iconic Jaago Re campaign which created a strong impact in the minds of the viewers. Jaago Re campaigns have, in the past, focused on various topics ranging from corruption and bribery to voting and women empowerment.

Recently, the brand released its new TVC 'Alarm Bajne Se Pehle Jaago Re', conceptualised by Mullen Lintas. It urges people to stop reacting after tragedies hit and instead start 'pre-acting' to prevent them from happening. Tata Tea intends to encourage 'pre-activism' - a behaviour of timely activism which happens before, to prevent unfortunate things.

The film brings alive the need for pre-activism in a hard-hitting, pertinent manner. The female protagonist drives this conversation with a compelling storyline which showcases the current reactive nature of people. It shows how people tend to rally for an issue once it has happened. The way they take to on-ground and social media after something bad has already happened. "Why do we get comfortable with reacting and not pre-acting on issues?" is the basic question that the film is addressing.

The ongoing TVC will be on air for the next eight to ten weeks. The brand will also do a large scale digital campaign.

The previous Jaago Re campaign was released in the year 2014. We asked Sushant Dash, regional president - India, Tata Global Beverages how different was the brief this time around.

He says, "The brief remained the same saying we need to establish thought leadership, stretch our media monies more and wanted to get into the youth habitat and speak the language of the youth. If we needed to do that, we needed to go the next level. When we did Jaago Re in 2008, it was a completely new thing even in terms of the story telling. The creative that came through was very different and that's what appeals to the people and that shows thought leadership."

Talking about the challenge, Dash says, "So the biggest challenge is the success of Jaago Re. When you have a campaign which is so successful and path breaking, if I try to change that, to what extent do I change it? Do you change it completely and still leverage the equity that you have built? Because as soon as you try to build an equity it is more of the same but you don't want that if you want thought leadership and that was the challenge in terms of how you continue to leverage the equity of Jaago Re but do something that is path breaking and completely different."

Sharing about the challenge the agency faced while coming up with the concept, Amer Jaleel, chairman and chief creative officer, Mullen Lintas, says, "It was challenging to come up with the thought. It took us six months. There were many nice pieces of work that we shared with the client but they didn't grab it. They dropped the ball. They said this is not the ball to catch and kept doing that till we came up with this idea and I am glad this happened. So that was the challenging part."

We asked our ad expert KV Sridhar (Pops), founder and chief creative officer, Hyper Collective, if this ad was likely to be a success and make an impact on the viewer's mind like the previous ads. Whether it would take the Jaago Re theme forward?

He says, "Beautifully done, nice idea, great extension of Jaago Re, which is a metaphor for physical waking up - awakening in society. I think they could have made it more personalised and relatable, though. Like the previous ads had politicians - that was more relatable. Now it has become more symbolic and abstract. It could have been more personalised through a story. That way, people can empathise more. A word of caution to the team on that front. But overall, it's a beautiful thought."

Here is a look at some of the Jaago Re ads from the past.