Wagh Bakri bets big on Rishton Ka Fever!

Tea major Wagh Bakri  has always believed in creating conversations around building relationships and the importance of conversations that make them meaningful each passing day. The brand's recent campaign, Rishton Ka Fever highlights it's philosophy of 'Hamesha Rishte Banaye'.

'Hamare yahan rishte Hi se nahi, chai se bante hain’' (Everlasting relations are created over a cup of tea, not hi), says the old granny addressing his grandson, Sunny, in Wagh Bakri's recently released campaign 'Rishton Ka Fever'. The campaign is loosely based on 'Hello friends, Chai pee lo' rage on social media. 

About the film

Conceptualised by Scarecrow M&C Saatchi, the film showcases a typical North Indian joint family with a cast that imbibes the modern youthful India, and the older generations steeped in tradition. It’s the story of Sunny – a young Punjabi boy, who’s returning after years of staying abroad. His time outside has alienated him to the warmth of the Indian culture.

We see this first when he avoids a hug from his father and truncates the conversation with a simple ‘hi’. His coldness is showcased throughout his journey back to his childhood house as he meets various people from his childhood (a shopkeeper, an old uncle and a long-lost friend). Sunny strikes down each of them with a blunt and simple ‘Hi’. The task of making him understand that he’s lost his way falls upon the old grandmother. As she makes tea for the family, she also teaches him a lesson with a heart-touching line, “Hamare yahan rishte ‘hi’ se nahi chai se bante hain. (Everlasting relations are created over a cup of tea, not hi)” The film ends with a hashtag to remind the masses #HiNahiChaiPilao.

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Wagh Bakri has always bet big on the element of ‘Rishtey’ (relationships) and played around it smartly through it’s campaigns building an emotional connect with its audiences over all these years.

In it's consumer research in 2013, Wagh Bakri Tea Group, the mother brand of India’s third largest tea brand, and Scarecrow M&C Saatchi discovered that "our relationships were getting colder." This was the genesis of the 2013 film – Rishton ki Garmahat. This film was a hit and earned millions of organic views on multiple social media platforms.

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The trend of short conversations had not just invaded the youth of urban India, but rural India too. This gave Scarecrow M&C Saatchi an interesting brand film idea, one that positions tea as an enabler and a solution to this proverbial ‘Hi’ fever.

Campaign Insight

Commenting on the insight behind the #RishtonKaHiFever campaign, Yogesh Shinde- Vice President Wagh Bakri Tea Group said, “In a world where we spend even lesser and lesser time with our loved ones and where conversations are coming down to just a ‘hi’, spending time over a cup of chai could be those few minutes of bonding that we need so dearly.”

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Adding further on the genesis of the 4-minute long film,, Manish Bhatt, Founder Director – Scarecrow M&C Saatchi shared, “Relationships are losing its steam in this technology driven world. . We considered 'Hi' as  a disease and dealt with it. What's better than a 'Dadi Ka Nuskha'. She knows it all and who other than her will be best suitable for the role to cure the disease. Tea has always acted as a catalyst for building and maintaining relations. And as we can nowadays conversations around relationships and with our relatives in the real world are getting shorter with the advent of social media. Creating shortcuts and getting the talks cut down has become a trend, we would rather spend that time of social media. With this though we went onto create the film which captures the true essence of relationships made over ‘chai’.”

The film is produced by Rising Sun Films who have delivered top-of-the-line cinema like, Pink, Piku, Madras Café, October, Vicky Donor and others. It’s directed by Anup Chitnis who as an advertising veteran has created and often directed memorable campaigns like, Tata Sky Amir Khan campaigns, Parle-G 'Aao banaye kal ke genius' and Ceat Tyres 'Streets are filled with idiots' and Channel V ‘Gheun tak’.

The Sufi song element

To accentuate the message of the film Team Scarecrow penned a song with a Sufi-base that summarises, “Rishton se na muh mod bande, rishte hain anmol. Nape-tule iss bol se bande rishton ko na tol. Do not shy away from relations, Relations are precious, Don’t compare relations with trivial talks (?)”

The melody of this specially composed song for the film is done by Rohan-Vinayak, the genius musical duo behind ‘Nil Battey Sannata’, ‘102 Not Out’ and ‘Pink’. Krishna Beura, who is a famously known singer in the Bollywood circuit and the iconic voice behind the famous track “Maula mere le le meri jaan” from ‘Chak de! India’ has lended his voice to the song. 

The ‘Rishton Ka Hi Fever’ video raked in 2,230 views on Youtube in a five days time and and has got thousands of people talking around #HiNahiChaiPilao on social media. Meanwhile the hashtag received 48,928 impressions, according to Tweetbinder.

Expert review:

Deepak Singh, CCO, The Social Street:

“I quite like the acting and casting of the campaign, music is also nice and the way it is executed is interesting. But I feel that the connect is a little forced fitted. In my view the young generation, especially the educated youth is very sensitive about relationships and they respect their culture and family, I am not sure if the way it is shown in the script is true. They are certainly more sensitive and open minded.”

Anjali Malthankar, National Strategy Director, Tonic Worldwide: 

"#HiNahiChaiPilao as a hashtag will appeal to the youth. The insight and idea is quite real. However the story of foreign returned son reminded me of a lot of ads which use this situation to show the cultural disconnect."