Kashmir Cooking Oil recently launched their new communication campaign, the highlight of which was a TVC featuring the Teefa in Trouble stars Ali Zafar and Maya Ali. The campaign was supported by a complete rebranding effort, including a revamped logo and a new corporate identity, positioning Kashmir as a premium edible oil brand.
Pakistan has more than 70 ghee/cooking oil brands, yet the unregulated and unpackaged cooking oil category accounts for about 80% of total sales. Pakistan has more than 150 ghee/cooking oil manufacturing units and a total consumption of about four million tons per year, 86% of which is catered by imported oils/oilseeds. With a growing population and rising income levels, this consumption is expected to rise by three to five percent a year, making it an increasingly attractive market for local and foreign players.
This strong potential for growth is the reason behind Kashmir Cooking Oil’s new campaign, says Mian Shahzad Khalid, Group Marketing Director, Kashmir Cooking Oil.
“We are almost doubling our capacity with the installation of a new refinery, which is a big thing. We are breaking boundaries and gaining ground in new cities. We decided to do a new communication that promoted a change in our corporate branding as well as a packaging revamp.”
Kashmir’s campaign, especially the TVC, represents a new direction towards inspirational advertising in contrast to previous TVCs that were largely functional, aiming solely at promoting a healthy lifestyle with close-up, stylised shots of various vegetables being cooked.
According to Zareen Rathor, Creative Director, RED Communication Arts (Kashmir’s creative agency), given that Kashmir is a 56-year-old brand with well-established product attributes, the need was to move away from functionality and go for a bigger purpose.
For Kashmir, ‘young’ is a state of mind and not just the age of a person. “We are targeting anyone and everyone who is young at heart and has an experimental chef in them. We didn’t define our market demographically; we created psychographic division.”
The big idea is Khaana To Bahana Hai focusing on the fact that food is not only essential for survival; in Pakistani society, “food is just an excuse to get together and Kashmir acts as an enabler in bringing people together,” affirms Khalid.
In Rathor’s opinion, brand equity is developed when the communication resonates with people at a deeper level and this is only possible when the brand has something meaningful to say that can capture a share of people’s hearts. “And this is what we did. It wasn’t a hard sell. We weren’t telling people about the product attributes; we were trying to connect with them.”
Although the campaign did evoke some criticism that it was a lazy effort to win over Millennials by using a tried and tested formula of throwing celebrities into a kitchen family setting, Rathor counters this by saying that “the stories the other ads tell are not about real homes. They lack the warmth and lived-in feel of a home. We have shown something that everyone can relate to. We made it a youth-oriented ad because the majority of the population is young. When a newly married couple moves to a separate home, they have to choose the right oil and although they are usually open to change, they will only do so in favour of something they believe is better and that they can relate to.”