If we may ask, when you hear the tunes or sound of Wah Taj! what all comes to your mind?
Well for us and many others, there are mainly two things, one- Ustad Zakir Hussain and the other Taj Mahal Tea’s ad featuring him.
But did you know that the Ustad wasn’t the only musical maestro that the brand had as its brand ambassador? Even if you do, not many are well aware of it!
Hence, when the dearly departed soul of Ustad Zakir Khan went on its heavenly abode, it wasn’t just the music fraternity which got teary eyed but also many others like ourselves who at once were teleported to the times when we saw Ustad Zakir Khan play his cherished instrument- Tabla on our screens in multiple ads for Hindustan Unilever’s Taj Mahal Tea.
While the loss of the tabla maestro does seem personal to many and people awaited a reaction from the brand which is believed to have made a fan following for itself via ads featuring him- Taj Mahal Tea, here is a little BTS story that we came across which proves that despite Ustad’s passing, life has come a full circle for HUL’s Taj Mahal Tea and his highness!
In a heartfelt move, when people went on to read the national daily- Times Of India, today, they were at once left with glowing eyes with a tear or two rolling down their faces as they saw that one of India’s beloved brand lived up to its iconicity and stepped beyond the usual moment marketing tactics and gimmicky advertising to actually pay a tribute to Ustad Zakir Khan by rolling out a full font page ad in TOI, with a succinct yet bang on copy.
Here’s how one of Ogilvy India’s three Chief Creative Officers spread the word across digital realm:
Little did he know then that India would react to it in a truly ‘grateful’ way, when he posted the digital copy of the ad on his LinkedIn and mentioned- “Goodbye to the legend from a grateful brand.
Thank you, sir.”
To those of you who are well aware of how the advertising world functions, it is a rare moment that folks from India’s media, creative and advertising world refer to someone as ‘sir’. For those of you who wonder how one goes about addressing someone in these galores, it’s the first name, mostly, irrespective of the person’s age or designation!
And let us tell you, its even rarer for brands to recognise their brand ambassadors years after they’ve parted ways from the brand in this tactical world. But such was the charisma of the Ustad who never went on to endorse or partner any other brand after Taj Mahal Tea!
Cut to a couple hours later, Shiv Shivakumar, Chairman of MTPL (an Advent Company) and former HUL leader shared another nostalgic note on Ustad’s association with Taj Mahal Tea.
In his post, he mentioned an instance where the brand nearly dropped Zakir Hussain in 1995.
“In 1995 the Taj Tea brand was not growing in its 30th year. I was the Marketing Manager, the bright Rukmini Gupte was the senior brand manager, Atishi Pradhan was the Account Planner from JWT. We looked at all consumer research and the consumer said ‘The tabalchi comes plays the tabla says Wah Taj’. There was a wallpaper effect. As a team we decided to drop Zakir and we checked about 6 new concepts with upcoming Indian maestros. The verdict, surprisingly consumers said Zakir was in his own league and these stars couldn’t touch him,” he wrote.
After this, the man who was once referred to as HUL’s backbone- Shivakumar, went on to add, “I was in London and went to meet the Unilever advertising guru Michael Bronsten. He was aghast that I was planning to drop Zakir. He said ‘You have no clue between you and the agency. You are getting wallpaper feedback because you are producing wallpaper advertising.’ That was the slap we needed. Then the team of Laurie Robertson, John Stuart, Atishi Pradhan, Deepa, Jagdip Bakshi and Rukmini got down to work and we built new advertising contexting Zakir, his flair and the Taj aroma magic. We went from Zakir coming into the Taj brand world to the brand entering Zakir’s world.”
He further went on to state that in the first relaunch advertisement that HUL did for Taj Mahal Tea at the time, they depicted the story of how an American reporter used Taj Tea to get an interview with Zakir and when the HUL board saw the ad, they didn’t like it for their believed in the notion that Taj is quintessentially Indian hence there was no point in featuring a foreigner in its ad.
“We refuted their feedback and the brand then grew double digit for the next three years at a 200 index price point to the industry average. Sanjay Khosla , our boss believed in it and backed it. Sanidhi Patel was his business manager. After the success of the relaunch, Zakir had dinner with a few senior managers of Hindustan Lever. It was full of fun, he was a great story teller and had great charisma,” Shivakumar further elaborated.
Cut to a few years later, he pointed out that the Ustad told him and Jagdip Bakshi these lines- “You guys have done such a great job of linking me to Taj that other brands test my name for advertising and consumers tell them this is the Taj Ustad.”
Post which, we’d like to believe that even Shivakumar was left teary eyed when he said, “He never took any other offer. He was just as proud of the brand as we were about his legendary talent. RIP Ustad. We carry fond memories of the great magic you created in reviving the brand.”
And this was one of the instances where Indian advertising truly made its winning move- by touching people’s hearts irrespective of anything and hence we termed this story- “From Nearly Dropping Tabla Legend In 1995 To Paying Tribute On TOI’s Front Page, Life Comes Full Circle For HUL’s Taj Mahal & Zakir Hussain.”
