DDB Mudra wins creative duties of AGRL’s Wagga Wagga cooking oil range

Agro Global Resources (AGRL) has chosen DDB Mudra West as their creative partner for the company’s four cooking oil variants – Wagga Wagga Diabetes Care, Wagga Wagga Heart care, Wagga Wagga Sautés & Salads and Wagga Wagga Superfry. The win comes on the back of a multi-agency pitch. The account is being led by the agency’s Mumbai office and is spearheaded by Shally Mukherjee, Senior Vice President & Business Partner, DDB Mudra West. 

Commenting on the account win, Rajiv Sabnis, Executive Director, DDB Mudra Group & Managing Partner, DDB Mudra West, said, “This is an interesting edible oil range being launched in the health space. Health & Wellness is becoming an increasingly relevant and future-focused space in India. With the specialised diabetes care oil being launched to begin with. Wagga Wagga promises to create a differentiated, quality offering to Indian consumers. It will be an exciting challenge to establish Wagga Wagga in a highly competitive and price-sensitive market. We look forward to the opportunity to partner this brand.” 

Launching its maiden campaign in India, AGRL’s Wagga Wagga is positioning its debutant ‘Diabetes care’ variant as the ‘Australian that helps control blood sugar’. Wagga Wagga gets its name from the Wagga Wagga region in Australia, from where the cooking oils are sourced and brought to India. 

The agency was given the task of creating a multi-media campaign that would communicate the superior benefits of the product, the pristine origins of the brand and the distinguished product benefits. The agency had to get the product noticed among other more established edible oil brands. 

To establish the origins of the product, the brand is personified through the character of Lucy Kaur – an Australian by birth and an Indian by heart. She is married to a Sikh man and is determined to win the hearts of her new Indian family. The opening film takes the viewers through Lucy’s introduction to her new family. The stern patriarch of the family is displeased by his son’s decision to marry a non-Indian woman. Lucy undergoes a series of disapproving confrontations until the day she cooks aloo tikki (potato patty), her father-in-law’s favourite dish. The fact that it is made in Wagga Wagga Diabetes Care oil so that her father-in-law can eat it, makes her break the ice with her new family. Wagga Wagga Diabetes Care oil thus becomes “the Australian that helps control blood sugar”. 

The three 20-seconder films in the series take viewers through Lucy’s journey in her Indian household post marriage, highlighting key brand features. In one of the films, the loving mother-in-law proudly offers a range of tasty party snacks to her snobbish kitty party members while praising Lucy for cooking them in Wagga Wagga Diabetes Care Oil. This was when the mom-in-law’s friends were teasing her for serving bland, diabetic food. In another film, Lucy’s extremely fit father walks into Lucy’s Punjabi home, making everyone believe in the goodness of the Wagga Wagga region. In the third film, the father-in-law jokes about his son inheriting Diabetes, knowing that it won’t happen considering Lucy cooks food in Wagga Wagga Diabetes Care oil. 

The films break the format of health focused edible oil communication by adding a dash of light-hearted humour, while tugging at emotions through a family drama. This campaign is further being supported by digital, print and other radio activation announcing the launch. 

Sujay Naik, Project Director, Agro Global Resources, said, “With a brand name like Wagga Wagga Diabetes Care Oil, you pretty much get the idea what the product is all about. This makes life simple for the consumer – but for the marketer is also a challenge. We didn’t want the brand to come across as medicinal or being exclusively for the diabetic patients. We didn’t want it to be preachy or prescriptive. Plus the brand and product have multiple differentiators, we wanted to do justice to all of them without diluting the core proposition. The biggest challenge is creating communication which consumers will actually register, rather than the paint-by-the-numbers approach which is so prevalent, and so happily ignored by consumers.” 

He further said, “The DDB team worked hard in understanding the consumer and crafting an insight, to building an endearing story around it. The resulting communication strategy is distinct, with an engaging story which consumers enjoy watching. It has been an absolutely fruitful association with the team, and we look forward to seeing what Lucy does from here.” 

Elaborating on the campaign, Rahul Mathew, National Creative Director, DDB Mudra Group, said, “There is an incredible source story that Wagga Wagga can boast of. Along with the health benefits of it being a diabetes management oil. We wanted to make sure we communicate all of that in an interesting manner. And Lucy was the marriage of all our intents.” 

Campaign credit 

Agency: DDB Mudra West

Chairman & Chief Creative Officer: Sonal Dabral

President and Managing Partner, DDB Mudra West: Rajiv Sabnis

Account Planning Team: Amit Kekre, Mehak Jaini, Neha Kulkarni

Creative Team: Rahul Mathew, Kunj Shah, Manish Darji, Fritz Gonsalves, Prasad Rao, Arun Ganesh, Mahima Mathur, Naresh Dhondi, Akshay Keluskar, Bhaskar Dwivedi

Account Management Team: Shally Mukherjee, Yugandhar Madidi, Colin Myers

Films Team: Vishal Sane, Meenaz Lala