Pulse Candy earmarks 6-7% of annual turnover for advertising & marketing

Two years after its launch in the market in 2015, DS Group recently rolled out the first ever TVC for its hard-boiled candy brand, Pass Pass Pulse. According to the company, Pulse Candy became a Rs 100-crore brand within eight months of its launch and then triple that size without any mass media spends, instead focusing on product marketing. 

Now, the tangy twist to the fruity flavour of Pulse Candy has been extended to the brand communication, with the tag line: ‘Pran jaaye par Pulse na jaaye’. The campaign, conceptualised by J. Walter Thompson, features quirky and humorous examples of how far people can go to save their favourite Pulse Candy. 

The brand plans to spend Rs 8 crore on a 360-degree marketing campaign. The advertising and marketing budget for Pulse Candy this year stands at 6-7 per cent of its annual turnover. Pulse Candy will go ahead with a 360 degree approach to marketing his year by releasing ads in popular national and regional media and support it with campaigns on digital, BTL and other promotional platforms. Pulse will also introduce new flavours and formats to keep the consumer interest going. 

Commenting on the brand, Shashank Surana, VP - New Product Development, DS Group, said, “Pass Pass Pulse has been a category disruptor and became an instant hit with the consumers across age groups since its launch. Thus, the idea was to create a campaign which can reiterate the love of consumers for the Pulse candies. The TVC beautifully showcases this emotion, demonstrating the popularity of the candy. With the launch of this humorous TVC, our endeavour is to take the brand’s popularity to the next level and further strengthen the consumer connect.” 

He further added, India has the largest number of young consumers who are also the decision makers in many homes today, so the brand needed to break the clutter in the communications space within the category. 

Speaking about the digital strategy for Pulse, Surana said, “The campaign will be breaking on social media soon. Pulse will be focusing on innovative ideas that will not only establish the brand thought but also engage with the digital audience.” 

Shujoy Dutta, Vice President & Executive Planning Director, J. Walter Thompson, added here, “It’s well known that candy is an impulse purchase and normally we would assume that this would appeal to children. But when we were commissioned to work on the brand, we discovered that the appeal of the candy spanned all age groups. Consumers enjoyed it so much that they were also buying them in jars – and during the development of the campaign we heard that the demand outstripped the supply and it became difficult to get your hands on the candy.” 

The TVC 

The first TVC, which is the master commercial, outlines the length to which people will go to hide their Pulse Candy and also the extent people will go to get their hands on a Pulse Candy. 

The film opens on the protagonist who is asleep in his room – this is when his house mates, on a day off, decide to play a prank on him to get their hands on his Pulse stash. They scream that the house in on fire. The protagonist, in a blurred sleepy state, actually assumes that the house is on fire and rushes to save his stash of hidden Pulse Candies – from inside a remote to one hidden in a DVD drive to some hidden in a trumpet. When he rushes out, he realises that his friends have tricked him and he has to give up his hidden stash of candies, but not until he manages to keep one for himself. The commercial ends with the tagline: ‘Pran jaaye par Pulse na jaaye’. 

Watch the TVC:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YKvmi99wjdM 

Agency Speak 

Elaborating on the TVC, Sundeep Sehgal and Siddharth Prasad (Executive Creative Directors, J. Walter Thompson Company), said, “The challenge of working on a candy campaign is that the category has already seen a large volume of work and expectations from candy advertising are high. We were looking for a unique, fresh take that would give people yet another reason to love Pulse. We noticed that people in office wouldn’t keep Pulse on their tables, but in a drawer or behind a book or something. A little game of hide and seek was playing out right in front of us, and that’s where the campaign idea came from.” Commenting on the line ‘Pran Jaaye, Par Pulse Na Jaaye’, they said, “It’s a quirky reflection of how people protect their Pulse candy.” 

Sharing his personal experience at his office, Siddharth Prasad, VP & ECD, J. Walter Thompson India, said that Pulse candies left in a cubicle or a corner office would soon disappear, which gave them the angle they were looking for the campaign. He added, “Pulse is so irresistible that if you really want to keep your Pulse for yourself, you’d have to hide it! We decided to keep this little game of hide and seek that at the core of the communication.” 

JWT will explore newer ways in their campaign strategy to carry forward the idea of ‘hiding’ to a completely different level in 2017, where the creative will continue to build on hiding Pulse in whacked out places. Shujoy Dutta believes it is huge challenge to work on a candy campaign since the industry has already seen a lot of work for candy and confectionary brands and thus the expectations are high. “Another challenge is that candy advertising needs to be not just entertaining but extremely funny as well. It is also critical to be able to marry a certain genre of humour to the brand.” 

Campaign credits: 

Client: Dharampal Satyapal Ltd
Director (of the film): Rajesh Krishnan
Production House:  Soda Films 

Creative Agency: J. Walter Thompson Company
Account management:
Senior Vice President & Executive Business Director: Subho Sengupta
Associate Vice President: Mukund Raina
Account Manager: Naman Joshi 

Planning:
Vice President & Execute Planning Director: Shujoy Dutta
Planning Director: Debasish Das 

Creative Team:
Chief Creative Officer: Senthil Kumar
National Creative Director: Sambit Mohanty
Executive Creative Directors: Siddharth Prasad, Sundeep Sehgal
Creative Director: Gresha Sengupta