How Balls of Steel helped sell Manchurian Balls! #Chings #DesiChinese #RanveerChing - Isspeshal Case Study

Background: Taking on the Giants!
Cinema & Cuisine connect our country. They're both a critical part of our culture. Capital Foods' brand Ching's Secret stands for Desi Chinese and has products like Masalas, Soups, Sauces, and Noodles. It competes with the likes of Nestle [Maggi] and other large players including ITC [Yippee], Unilever [Knorr], Top Ramen. Ching's was a local player with ambitions to go national.

The Challenge: Mummy Bhookh Lagi!
Ching's biggest challenge was saliency/ awareness. Besides, category communication was stuck with the tropes of hungry kid and mom whipping up a meal in [2] minutes. There were dragons, geishas and even SRK selling Chinese noodles! Breaking the clutter of cliches was a key task.

The Plan: Maa ki Maa ki aankh!
Cuisine changes every 5kms in India, but Bollywood & Desi Chinese unite. We consciously decided to BURN the category templates. The client was brave enough to BYPASS a traditional advertising agency [that's often stuck in the 'format' with a 30-sec TVC or a hoarding layout, this was 2014.] We decided to KILL the mother. We IGNORED the 30-sec TVC format. AVOIDED the product window. And DIDN'T have the celebrity hold the pack, punch the tagline. And we consciously CHOSE A MAVERICK celebrity. 

Enter Mr. Ranveer Singh & Team
This was before Ram Leela, Bajirao, anything major had happened. Ranveer had had no major hits after his smashing debut and the only brand he endorsed at that stage was Durex condoms. But his attitude was a slam-dunk fit that the brand was seeking to reflect. Anything but, "Mere kaale ghaney baalon ka raaz!"

We brought in a really exciting creative team to create communication that celebrated the brand. An A-list Bollywood crew helped create the smokescreen that there was actually a film in the pipeline. Shaad Ali to direct, Gulzar for lyrics, Shankar-Ehsaan-Loy for music, Ganesh Acharya to choreograph and Yash Raj Films digital to distribute among others. We embedded the brand so seamlessly into the content that the lines between brand, entertainment, and talent completely blurred.

Singh is Ching

We designed a thumping, chart-busting song and music video centered around a colorful character called 'Ranveer Ching'. The brand name was part of the key hook line and chorus. And the video was young, high-energy, spicy, exciting AF and a massive clutter-breaker. "My Name is Ranveer Ching".

Category ki Maa-Behen
Designed & deployed like a movie promo. Teasers, first look posters, trailers, song promos. Populated across the entire digital eco-system with telcos, music on web. Ranveer's personal social media handle switched to Ranveer Ching! 

Trade on Fire!
Sales teams were buzzing, retail was frothing at the mouth. Massive audio streams, downloads, crazy rotations, spins across 17+ music channels, radio stations ensured. And the campaign generated PR worth almost 100 million. 

Quotes, Priya Chanda, GroupM Director on Knorr, "#mynameisranveerching is truly the best marketing campaign of the year!". Manita Panwani, GM Marketing, McDonald's, "Incredible campaign, can it be replicated for McD's, how the hell was it done?" Ameya Sule, Business Director, GroupM ESP, "Ching's is a total clutter-breaker, content integration done so smartly Vs. the classic 30-sec TVC." Amar Thomas, CMO, Blackberry, "Fantastic innovation, put Ching's on the map... when does the movie come out?"

Business Impact
Distribution reach jumped 4x from 70k stores in Aug 2014 to 280k stores by Dec 2015. The newly launched Rs. 10 soup range took off like a rocket, Knorr launched 'Buy 2, Get 1 Free' on-pack promotion! Ching's soup became No. #1 in Maharashtra and Gujarat. And most importantly, gained MASSIVE SHARE OF MIND.

Upping the Game: Gaane ke baad Phillum!

The brand had managed to create awareness, but now it was time to create and take ownership of a cuisine block, 'Desi Chinese'. Go wider nationally and dig deeper into the South. And further juice this hugely successful campaign and character of Ranveer Ching. 

So we decided to go the whole hog. And produce a mainstream BLOCKBUSTER mini-movie. In came, Mr. Masala, Rohit Shetty himself. Strategically, we chose Tamannah and Pradeep [who played Ghajini], both very popular names down south.


Ranveer Ching Returns

Rohit helped design an insane dystopian Mad Max meets Bollywood world struck by hunger that could only be saved by a Desi Chinese Warrior named Ranveer Ching. Full of seetis, high-octane action with trademark Rohit Shetty cars flying, blowing up, dhamaal dialogues, mazedaar song & dance. The original track was remixed by DJ Chetas returning like a signature tune.

The film titled 'Ranveer Ching Returns' was premiered like a movie on a Friday at a single screen with media, trade, and consumers with full-on bells and whistles. People couldn't believe the spectacle. Clocking 11mn + views in a week [this was 2016, pre-Jio days, and totally organic!], the ancillary content raked up 5mn + views. The campaign front-paged on dailies, entertainment, and business media. Taran Adarsh, Komal Nahta, Anupama Chopra, Rajeev Masand were reviewing a TVC!

Business Impact continued to Grow!

Leaders from Unilever and the Industry to Amitabh Bachchan were raving about it on social media. Sony TV ran promos to promote the premiere of the ad on their channel! There was a 72% lift in ad recall, 452% jump in brand interest [this was unprecedented in the category], 1000% lift in search across markets. Massive impact in target markets - especially Tamil Nadu, Karnataka, Telangana. 

The masala business grew by 45% by the sheer momentum of trade and sales force. Distributors from small towns in UP, Bihar & Jharkhand started queuing up. The export order book grew by over 100%. The topline more than tripled in that window over 3 years.

Plus Ranveer as Maa Ching got seeded for carry forward into recipe videos, cut downs and more.

Captain Ching Rises

We created a further follow-up for Ching's Schezwan Chutney - a spicy AF sauce - as another mad spin, this time with Bollywood director Ali Abbaz Zafar. An insane sci-fi ad film, the film took off on the superhero genre with Captain Ching who had the ability to fly courtesy the fire from his bum that came out propelling him upwards after eating Ching's Schezwan Chutney. With a tagline that screamed, "Chutney nahi, rocket hai rocket!" This was another clutter-breaker that had the market shaken up. 

Many people have tried the song/ music video routine, as also the mini-movie, but no one has been able to pull it off with as much style and impact as Ching's for sure. 

Final Takeaways...

1. The riskiest thing you can do today is to play safe... you have to give it to the Capital Foods, MD, Ajay Gupta for having Balls of Steel to take this kind of an audacious risk!
2. Set and have clear expectations... clarity of brief is essential [sharpness, first one, "create awareness"/ second, "create cuisine block"/ third, "launch spicy chutney as no one can"]
3. Don't work with idiots... team up with the best, they're worth the money spent for a reason
4. Then trust them and back the F*** OFF! Clients often make the mistake [especially some brand/ media managers] who hire an expert and then tell him/ her what to do! Bhai tum khud kar lo phir!
5. Don't be half-assed... go all in. 
6. Be patient... content DOES NOT directly drive sales BUT content builds relationships, relationships build trust and trust drives revenue... eventually. I have seen that across a host of categories, through a variety of content-led marketing solutions that I have worked on [and will share more case studies soon about the same with tangible numbers]
7. Don't be afraid of failure... but also be prepared for success. How to juice, amplify, extend across platforms, to the team internally, to monetize and to build on. Often people are caught as unaware with success as they are with something not working... 

And last but not least... call us, if you wish to create a case study of your own. We're on isspeshalstratcon@gmail.com.