Limca Fresh Ho Jao Ad featuring Sushma Reddy

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Agency: O & M (Ogilvy & Mather)

Tagline: Fresh Ho Jao, Lime and Lemoni

Duration: 45 seconds

First seen: October ’08

Ad Message: Reinforcing Limca as a drink synonymous with freshness, giving the brand a more sophisticated feel

Target Audience: High income group (25+ years) [according to my perception]

Frequency: Medium

Description: Opens with a chic-looking couple waiting by their car and the girl (played by Sushma Reddy) looks bored while the guy (played by Niketan Madhok) is on the phone. The guy then offers the girl a bottle of Limca while holding one himself. Next we see the couple taking sips from the bottle of Limca and splashing water at each other from the car, the steps, the tree trunk and the sidewalk. Last shot shows both of them walking hand-in-hand with their empty Limca bottles and looking visibly refreshed after all the splattering around.

[Caution: Strictly opinionated comments follow]

This commercial has been on air for sometime now but ever since it caught my eye (or should I say ears) I had to write about it. There are 3 things that work for this ad – Music, music, music. Yes, a tune so melodious, a set of lyrics so divine and a voice so sweet you could get diabetic just by listening to it, this ad definitely is a treat to the sore ears. The video is well shot with the couple and the foreign locales lending a pretty urbane feel to the whole ad (which is why the glass bottle struck me as an odd-choice!).

This commercial is of course just a blatant re-implementation of the ‘Fresh ho jao’ idea Limca has been using for quite sometime now. In fact, the beginning of the ad seemed quite lame to me and I kept wondering why they looked so bored to begin with? Led me to think that they could have at least shown the couple stuck in a traffic jam, until of course I remembered their previous campaign with Riya Sen. To an extent, the previous one (featuring a gang of youngsters) fares better with respect to target-audience-connect because it is hard to imagine such an affluent couple grabbing a ten rupee Limca bottle (Diet Coke maybe…but Limca bottle woh-bhi-glass-waali…uhh far-fetched).

So, it’s all been there and done before – the ‘sitting in a car equals boredom’ idea, the imaginary water, the splashing, the drenched people and the freshness afterwards. But, the music…well, that alone is what stops you from flicking channels while this one is on air.

Trivia: The composer for this commercial’s track is R. Anandh and it has been sung by Cara Lisa Monteiro of Phir Dekhiye fame. Lyrics of the song go –

“Fuhaarein, bochharein, nazaaare chura lo na, kuch boondein chura lo na; Thaki si zindagi se, ruki si zindagi se, kuch lamhe chura lo na…; Kuch yaddein, aur sapne, apne chura lo na; Ruki si zindagi se, thaki si zindagi se, raftaarein chura lo na…”

I have this jingle as an MP3 and finally have found a way of sharing it with you all 🙂 Simply click on the link below and enjoy!

Get MP3 here!!!

Update [Feb 14th, 2009] –Yes, I managed to record the full song too, and here is the link (right-click and ‘Save link as’ to download the MP3) –

Get Full Song MP3 here!!!

And here goes my rating:

	Weight	Rating	W * R
Idea/Innovation/Creativity	15	4	60
Execution
Storyline/Screenplay	10	4	40
Music/Jingle	10	9	90
Cinematography	5	8	40
Acting	5	7	35
Duration vs Impact	5	6	30
Cost vs Impact	5	7	35
Recall
Brand Recall	10	7	70
Ad Memorability	5	7	35
Tagline	7.5	7	52.5
Product Association	5	7	35
Target Audience Connect	7.5	4	30
Entertainment	5	7	35
Claim	2.5	6	15
Emotional Appeal	2.5	6	15
Total	100	617.5

Weighted Average Rating: 617.5/100 = 6.175 (on a scale of 10)

So, how would you rate this ad?