Iconic Ads: Naukri – Hari Sadu

In 2003, many of the dotcoms had gone bust. Naukri was soldiering on.

There was no proper understanding of the space. There were no formulas to follow, no set behavioural patterns, no evaluation parameters, no success stories or case studies.

And there were two sets of targets audience – prospective employers and prospective employees. For the business, both of them, very equally important.

Offline executive search firms were still preferred. And the tough competition was lurking from the MNC Monster.com that had set foot in India, with lots of international experience.

Naukri was transactional and with no human interaction. There was a need to give it an emotion/ attitude which would attract the audiences quickly – quick results were required.

After going through all options like convenience, privacy, database, a large number of clients, Ulka decided to try something different.

Sanjay Sharma, the creative director, had a personal experience that reinforced the phrase “People don’t quit their jobs, they quit their bosses.

This insight and creative thought of boss bashing is what triggered the advertising creative.

Hari Sadu happened after a couple of commercials had done well. Employers loved the boss bashing, and Ulka decided to take it to the next level.

A chance telephonic conversation on an unclear line, with a tele-caller, led Sanjay to spell out his name. After the call, he realized that he had an edgier new idea.

“Sadu” is a colloquial expression used to describe people who are upset over nothing. Hari was happenstance and it became representative of an unreasonable, always upset, difficult boss.

Rajesh Krishnan did a great film with Bobby Parvez playing the unreasonable boss.

The punch line came while shooting. The team was trying to get a better way to end the film when it finally happened -the boss’ sidekick adding ‘S’ for Shameless!

Recalls Sanjay, “At first, the client felt the ad and the joke may be too childish, but…