How Bollywood took lead in advertising...

From Karan Arjun to Zindagi Na Milegi Dobara - brands this year, repurposed many Bollywood scenes to drive home their core message and offerings.

It has been an interesting year of Bollywood and advertising associations. Be it Dum Maaro Dum song being used in the iPhone ad or our favourite actors making a comeback in the CRED ads or the Zomato-Jalebi Baby association. Every now and then you hear a famous 90’s dialogue or song or actor pop up on your screen in an ad and it gets you going down memory lane. Bollywood references have been adding a relatability factor in ad campaigns, more so in 2021.

A number of Indian brands this year resorted to repurposing legendary Bollywood scenes for their ad campaigns, in 2021. These have mostly been scenes that have a permanent place in pop culture - from memes to relatable references. While the use of Bollywood has various intents and purposes like stickability and larger shelf-life of campaigns, the usage of 90s Bollywood scenes work as a great way to grab the attention of the proverbial 90s kids. You could say the target audience of 25-45 largely.

Here we curate ad campaigns from 2021 that use good old Bollywood references to add humor to the message:

Dunzo

Dunzo ventured into celebrity ad campaigns, to shed light on the benefits customers can enjoy when they use their delivery services.

Who doesn’t remember Sunny Deol and his applause-worthy dialogue in Damini. Dunzo recreated the “Tareekh pe tareekh” monologue from the courtroom.

As a part of the campaign, Sunil Grover was seen recreating the famous monologue by Shah Rukh Khan from Chak De India! when he motivates the Women’s Hockey team before the final match. Dunzo highlighted the USP of their brand which is a 19-minute delivery of fresh groceries.

Cult.fit

Cult.fit brought back their ad campaign, ‘Fitness is not an option’ with a humorous Bollywood touch. These campaigns portrayed different Bollywood movie scenes where life could’ve been easier if you took fitness seriously. The campaign where Zindagi Na Milegi Dobara was referenced featured popular comedians Rahul Dua, Rahul Subramanian, and Aadar Malik to recreate the bull race.

Next in the campaign was a humourous twist to the Bollywood cult film Karan Arjun.

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Xiaomi

Xiaomi's latest ad for its Diwali party sale featured the popular Music Director, Himmesh Reshammiya, and actors Bobby Deol and Mouni Roy. The commercial had several references to Bobby Deol's film songs as well as Reshammiya's best successes where everyone celebrated Diwali with Mi and grooved to ‘The Lord Bobby’s Party Mix’.

Mahindra Truck & Bus

After 30 years, Ajay Devgn's legendary split was brought back in a campaign for Mahindra Truck and Bus, where the actor is seen doing the stunt on FURIO 7 trucks, featuring the integrity of the vehicle.

2021 has seen many forms of content revamps - from remixes of famous songs to reboots of old shows (Bade Acche Lagte Hai 2) to the remake of old ads with a new twist (Cadbury Cricket Ad), to repurposing Bollywood scenes for campaigns.