Red Eveready: Give me Red
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1990 was a good year for red.
The Indian market was about to change. Liberalization and deregulation in the world’s only truly democratic socialist market (notice the contradictions?) had not yet begun but there were rumblings. Pepsi had begun making waves. Coke had not yet relaunched. Meanwhile, MTV was entering India through bootleg tapes and Star TV had just begun swinging its giant satellite searchlight across India. There was more money – and younger people spending it – on new goods like walkmans and discmans. Batteries were no longer destined for “transistor radios”.
That was the old Eveready. “The Chosen One for Your Transistor.” For the new Red Eveready, we had to find a way to connect with what would later be called the MTV/Channel V generation.
We coined a catchphrase that went into the vernacular: Give me Red! and launched a mammoth multimedia campaign.
The phrase swept across the country, and the advertising – part commercial, part music video, part rock concert poster – swept the awards.
The campaign ran for 13 consecutive years and is studied by wannabe (remember that 80s buzzword?) MBAs in business schools to this day. In 2011, after a hiatus, Give me Red was resurrected with superstar Akshay Kumar providing some Bollywood power.
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Advertising and Marketing Campaign of the Year 1990
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The campaign has been the focus of tremendous press attention over the years. Here's an interview from DesiCreative.