Iconic Ads: Pan Pasand

After leading a sugarcane revolution in Maharashtra that resulted in the opening of one of the very first sugar mills in India, Walchand Hirachand Doshi established Ravalgaon Confectioneries in 1933.

Pan Pasand is, without a doubt, one of the most incredible candies that kids just cannot get enough of. Children did not consume the actual paan, and the only thing that even resembled paan that they ever had was Pan Pasand. While the paan flavour and red colour of Pan Pasand lingered on our tongues, the other reason was adored for its beautiful yellow-green wrapper. Pan Pasand made us feel like grownups, and its red colour and paan flavour. In addition, children experience what is known as a “paan sensation” when the delicious “paan juice” gently travels down their throats. Despite being kids, it enabled them to enjoy a wonderful paan!

It was in 1986 and the brief went to Advertising Avenues. It was obvious to popularise Pan Pasand.

The idea was that eating paan or paan-flavoured candy sweetens (brings Mithaas) the tongue, but Avenues didn’t want it to be contrived or the character to lose its original temperament. So even though the lines are delivered sweetly, the character is still refusing the proposal – the person does not change, only the attitude changes.

The idea broke new ground, and there was a lot of cleverness in the commercials. Unlike the regular 30-second 30-sec commercials, these were 10 seconds each. The Avenues team (Goutam Rakshit, Ashoke Roy, and Gopi Kukde) had prepared 23 different scenarios, and the client selected 4 of them.

My all-time favourite would have to be “Shaadi aur tumse? Kabhi nahi! (Marry you? Never!)” campaign for Pan Pasand. This particular creative was conceptualised by Gopi Kukde