Fevicol: Stuck with a bad idea  

June 8, 2010

The new ad is hackneyed and no longer captures the imagination

So, Fevicol is back. A relatively small brand, but one that is best known for its shining, award-winning creative work. Actually, Pidilite Industries (makers of Fevicol) is a dream account for any ad agency. They give their ad agency (Ogilvy & Mather) creative directors total freedom. Not something you can say for 99% of Indian clients. No wonder Piyush Pandey will never let go of the client…. he’s gleefully stuck to them with Fevicol!
 
This time the brand is back with an extension called ‘Fevicol Marine’, with a promise that the bond doesn’t break even under water. The TV commercial is a hark back to its age-old ‘tug-of-war’ ad for the mother brand. Except that this time, the action has shifted to the backwaters of Kerala. So it’s once again 'Dum lagake, zor lagake, haishaaaaaa!'. The occasion is the State’s famous snake boat race. Two snake boats are tied to an ancient chair that’s placed under water. With each boat and its crew pulling from the opposite directions. Egged on by an excitable chap, who I assume must be the brand manager of Fevicol. The idea quite obviously is to demonstrate that the kursi bonded by Fevicol Marine will stay in one piece in these testing conditions.
 
So no bets for guessing the boatmen lose this competition. Cool. Once again Fevicol does what it does best: make a wild claim using wild exaggeration as the creative route. Don’t know how much of it helps in the market place, but award juries are stuck with Fevicol.
 
My own take: Very disappointing ad. It’s an ordinary ad, not even a patch on Fevicol’s own sensational past body of work. An obvious idea for a marine adhesive: go under water. And the snake boat trick has been so done to death in Indian commercials, it no longer captures the imagination. In fact, it’s totally hackneyed. Some would argue that product performance is nicely demonstrated, so then why crib? Yes, that’s true. And for any other brand one wouldn’t have dissed this creative. But not for Fevicol. You don’t come up with such banal work for any ad agency’s dream brand. It’s unforgivable, it’s criminal.
 
Methinks creative ‘god’ and O&M honcho Shri Piyush Pandey is on his annual leave, and is holidaying in some exotic location faraway (no, not the Kerala backwaters!). And so he didn’t get a chance to whet this dull storyboard. Come back soon, Sirji! Else your own bond with Pidilite might just come undone. Haishaaaaa! — Anil Thakraney