Hall of Ads: Asli Swad Zindagi Ka - The ad that changed how India celebrated forever

On this week’s Hall of Ads, we’re highlighting an iconic ad that has been loved to such an extent that it was later remade with a wholesome change. Cadbury Dairy Milk’s 1994 cricket advertisement, titled ‘Asli Swad Zindagi Ka’, introduced us to limitless celebrations for a loved one’s achievements.

On the verge of scoring a century, the ad opens with 99 runs already secured by the batsman during a cricket match. Simultaneously, we also see his partner (played by Shimona Rashi) sitting on the stadium stands, watching the game with full focus, rooting for him to score a 100 runs while biting into a bar of Cadbury Dairy Milk chocolate. Determined to score bigger and better on that deciding over, the batsman goes for a six. The ball ricochets from his bat, straight across the boundary ropes, scoring a six so perfectly that the fielder couldn’t even capture it even if he tried.

A wave of joy reflected on the girl’s face as she hugged her friend sitting next to her. Everything was normal up to that point, until she got up from her seat, rushed towards the ground, dodged the policeman guarding the place, and performed an uninhibited celebratory dance for her partner’s achievement. With the authorities confused, she moves on with a childlike jig, happy for the century he scored. The ad concludes with the two sharing a bar of Dairy Milk chocolate.

Even with a short and snappy runtime of just 40 seconds, the ad was on everyone’s lips. It moreover broke a lot of stereotypes that were associated with chocolates, and also the portrayal of women in the advertising world. Conceived by Piyush Pandey of Ogilvy, the ad was a trendsetter as elements of it were quickly picked up by people.

Back in the 90s, as television sets were considered a luxury product in India, residents of almost all neighbourhoods used to sit together at the residence of someone who owned one. As B. R. Chopra’s Mahabharat concluded in 1990, and the advent of international broadcasters like Star, CNN, BBC, and Zee brought with it an array of new channels, viewership rapidly expanded, with more TV sets being purchased.

Complete with Shankar Mahadevan’s rich voice on the jingle, the ad was queued and played during the breaks of the cricket matches that were broadcast on Doordarshan – India’s most-trusted public service broadcaster. People found themselves humming “kya swaad hai zindagi mein,” as it was a simple yet catchy melody. The girl’s dance move was also adopted by many during the matches. When India won a match or a trophy in the international championships, people enhanced their celebrations by imitating the dance move.

Cadbury later rolled out their ‘Celebrations’ packaging in 1997, which redefined the concept of gifting altogether. Campaigns like this one and newer ones like the 2012 ‘Kuch Meetha Ho Jaye’ campaign, released on the occasion of Raksha Bandhan, helped transform how Indians perceived and consumed chocolates. Chocolates were originally associated with kids and their habit of having an eternal sweet tooth. Cadbury found a way to break that stereotype and associated milk chocolates with adulting as well. The consumption base of the product grew substantially with this move.

Cadbury brought back and reinvented the ‘Asli Swad Zindagi Ka’ ad campaign in 2021 and added a twist to it. The roles reversed, with the girl as the batsman and the guy dancing to her achievements. Having a slightly remastered version of the jingle by Mahadevan and similar camera angles, the ad brought back nostalgia, but with a contemporary take on it. The campaign’s ad had an apt tagline, saying “Waqt Badla Hain, Zindagi Ka Swad Nahin.”

We see the girl hitting the century and her partner jumping onto the field to dance and celebrate her smashing performance, ending with #GoodLuckGirls. While the ad only shows cricket, it is a sign of the times we live in and what our girls are achieving every day.