Relaunch of Frooti-The 'Digen Verma' Campaign

“Our aim was to create hype around the product, so we introduced a mysterious character called ‘Digen Verma.’ As our target audience is the youth segment, we wanted to showcase their rebellious spirit through Digen Verma.”
-Ram Sehgal, MD, Everest Integrated Communications.
''Frooti has always been positioned as a drink for kids. Now, we want to position it as a drink for the youth, especially, the college-going teenagers. We therefore went in for a real life, down-to-earth person, who, like any college student likes to bunk classes, is a good sportsman and is a popular figure in the college, with whom the teenagers can actually associate themselves.''
-Alka Bhonsle, Management Consultant, Parle Agrochemicals.

WHO IS DIGEN VERMA?

There was no getting away from him. A poster at a bus stop in Chennai asked, “Will Digen Verma be in the next bus?” Or, when watching a movie; there was bound to be an interruption all of a sudden with a handwritten message saying, ‘Digen, your car is being towed’. And, outside in the car park, almost all the cars had stickers on them saying, ‘Digen Verma was here.’ In many commercial places in metros and even far off places like Simla, there were footmarks accompanied by the mysterious words ‘Digen Verma was here’ pasted. There were rumours galore about ‘Digen Verma’ and his identity. Some thought it was a campaign for the launch of some new fashion label, while others thought Digen Verma he was a philanthropist.

The enigma called ‘Digen Verma’ was everywhere, in buses, film halls, colleges, cyber cafes and shopping malls. ‘JUST who is Digen Verma?’ That’s what the nation seemed to be have been wanting to know. In the 15 days that the campaign lasted in (February 2001), Digen Verma seemed to have become the most talked about faceless name in the country.

The ‘Digen Verma’