BackRanveer Singh adds ‘Desi Chinese flavour’ to Ching’s Secret
Posted on Ching's Secret's official YouTube channel on 19 August, the campaign featuring Ranveer Singh has already logged 3.6 million views
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New Delhi: Ching’s Secret, the Capital Foods-owned Chinese ingredients and ready-to-eat noodles brand, has rolled out its second campaign with Bollywood actor Ranveer Singh and Tamannaah Bhatia. Singh first appeared in a music video for the brand in 2014. But this time, Ching’s has upped the ante and designed the current campaign as a short film, which was promoted through a trailer weeks before the formal launch.
Posted on the brand’s official YouTube channel on 19 August, the campaign has already logged 3.6 million views.
The more than five minute-long video is a Bollywood potboiler directed by Rohit Shetty in association of Yash Raj Films Talent. Set in a devastated fictional land, it tells the post-war story where people are dying of hunger while an evil warlord rules and controls ration. The oppressed people including Ranveer Ching’s love interest (played by Tamannaah Bhatia) are saved and fed with Desi Chinese by Singh. The film ends with a surprise element where Singh is featured as a Punjabi mother named Maa Ching leaving viewers guessing about the upcoming second part.
Launched in multiple languages, the campaign will be released in 600 theatres. It will also premiere on Sony Entertainment Television as a rollover of Kapil Sharma’s show on 28 August. Sony will promote the film across its channels for one month before it goes live on other networks.
Ajay Gupta, managing director, Capital Foods, said that Ranveer was involved in every aspect of their communication. “The objective behind this campaign is to own the desi Chinese food space, go mass and enter the tier II and III towns," he said.
“Our target group is consumers between 18 and 36 years and hence we want to communicate with them in a fun and quirky way. That is the brief we gave to Rohit Shetty," he added.
Ching’s Secret, as per Nielsen data, is distributed through 300,000 stores predominantly in the west and north region. The company is aiming to make inroads in the south.
Talking about the unique format of communication, Raghu Bhatt, founder, Scarecrow Communications, notes that Ching’s Secret brand is ‘unapologetically Desi Chinese’. The communication and tone of voice is a logical outcome of this distinctive positioning.
“A lot of Indians embraced Chinese food after sampling it first in food carts or Kolkata’s Chinatown. The brand makes a subtle acknowledgement of this fact by adopting ‘street lingo’ to communicate. The use of Ranveer also underlines how comfortable the brand is in its own skin. The long story format works well to create drama and conflict on a larger canvas, like in Bollywood and also allows a celebratory resolution of the conflict, using song and dance," he noted.
Agreeing with Bhatt, Naresh Gupta, strategy head and managing partner, Bang in the Middle, finds each element from casting to story line straight out of a classic Hindi film story. Ranveer’s Ching, he feels, is a good way to carry the story forward from last time (the music video).
“I would have preferred to not bring the product at all in the song and leave it in suspended animation where the song is about noodles, but we don’t see the packs. Would it not have left me with a bigger grin on my face?," he said, adding that the end-product shots don’t belong to the landscape or the battlefield.
Gupta thinks that if Ching’s has to become the filmy Chinese brand, then it should be brave enough to drop the forced product placement and become far greater fun that will be remembered.
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