How Vicks is geared to drive awareness & top of mind for consumers this cricket season

India’s leading cold and flu brand, Vicks, has launched a new campaign film for Vicks Cough Drops. The brand joined hands with cricket icon Yuvraj Singh to unveil its new #VicksKholIndiaBol Cheer Anthem. The #VicksKholIndiaBol cheer anthem celebrates India’s boundless enthusiasm for cricket and aims to enable 142 crore Voice champions to cheer for their team this cricket season.

In conversation with Adgully, Sahil Sethi, Category Leader - Personal Healthcare, P&G India, speaks at length about the rationale behind Vicks cricket centric campaign, the creative process behind it, how Vicks reaches its target audience, and more.

What is the rationale behind Vicks’ decision to create an anthem as the centerpiece of its cricket campaign, instead of exploring other advertising mediums?

The rationale behind the campaign was about how we make sure that we are celebrating the cheer of all the fans, because for any sports, cheer of the fans is a very integral part. Vicks has always stood for its objective to give that kitch-kitch-free voice to enable consumers so that they can speak up in the critical moments of their life. With that objective, we wanted to make sure that we are leveraging this cricket season where consumers or the fans are really excited and preparing to cheer for their teams. With our objective of giving that kitch-kitch free voice to our consumers, this became a really nice fit because you don’t want to go through that kitch-kitch when you are cheering for your team.

This anthem also celebrates the fact that the fans have responsibility for cheering for their team while they expect their teams to do too great. As well as at the same time, their cheer has a lot of power in terms of turning around the tables when things are not going well for your team. That is what this anthem is trying to celebrate. Our objective is really to make 142,000 voice champions so that everyone is cheering for their team in this cricket season.

Which agency has created this campaign?

We have worked with L&K Saatchi and Saatchi for this campaign.

Please provide some insights into the creative process behind the development of the Vicks’ anthem for this campaign? What inspired the concept and execution?

When we got into brainstorming for this campaign, the objective was, how do we drive the relevance for the brand among fans who are preparing for this big cricketing season over the next few months? We started thinking about what’s important for the fans and where we, as a brand, can play a role. For many years, Vicks has been known for giving Kitch-Kitch-Free Voice. The famous jingle, “Vicks ki goli lo khich khich dur karo”, has been something that we have been using for a number of years. We started thinking, what role can the brand play in this? It was a very perfect fit for us that fans are looking for that Kitch-Kitch-Free Voice to cheer for their team. Vicks Cough Drop can play that role to give that Kitch-kitch-free voice to the consumers when they are cheering for their team. This is what inspired us – the passion with which our consumers or our cricket fans cheered for their respective teams. That really was the inspiration.

How has Vicks’ entire communication process evolved over the last two decades?

We have been using the jingle, “Vicks Ki Goli Lo Kitch-Kitch Dur Karo”, for decades. And even today, we continue to use it. One of the latest campaigns that we have done for Vicks was with Ranveer Singh, which came out last year. In this campaign also, it is about enabling the consumers to speak up. How it has evolved is really the context of where the product is being used. For example, in the campaign that we launched last year, Ranveer Singh is shown as a son who is talking to his father about the future. The dad is asking what the future holds, what are you going to do? He has that kitch-kitch in that critical moment, and he takes the Vicks Cough Drops, and then he goes on to speak about what he wants to do in life, which is becoming an actor.

The context in which the brand comes in has evolved over the years, but the integral role of the brand continues to be giving that kitch-kitch-free voice, and hence the jingle, “Vicks Ki Goli Lo Kitch-Kitch Dur Karo”, is something that we have been continuing with.

How does Vicks intend to measure the success and effectiveness of its cricket campaign, particularly in terms of connecting with its target audience?

The main objective of the campaign is really to drive awareness and drive top of mind for our consumers in this season because as we talked about earlier, all cricketing fans are preparing and very excited to cheer for their respective teams. We want to ensure that Vicks Cough Drops continue to be their partner in that journey of becoming voice champions for their respective teams. That really is the key objective: how does the top-of-mind awareness continue to grow during this season for us.

In today’s digital age, how does Vicks plan to effectively leverage digital and social media platforms to amplify the reach and impact of this campaign? Any specific strategies planned out?

We always look at where the consumers are consuming the content these days, where they are engaging for this content. With that in mind, from a media mix point of view, it is definitely going to be digital-heavy. We are leveraging multiple touch points like social media, YouTube, even the OTT platforms like Hotstar are in the mix of the marketing plans for the next few months.

How do you measure the effectiveness of OTT reach per se?

Our key objective will be top-of-mind awareness during this season, and that really will be the key measure that we’ll be looking at. The second thing is because we feel this campaign, while it is an anthem, has the brand role very organically integrated in the anthem. It is not just a random anthem which doesn’t have a clear role of the brand. Even if you hear some of the lyrics, it talks about “Nah Hichkichare Nah Kichkichare”, which again, organically, comes in as part of the anthem, which will help drive the consideration for the brand as well. These are the two metrics that we will be looking at, how it progresses over the next few months as we run this campaign.