The usual way people talk about the best Indian ad campaigns doesn’t sit right with me. It tends to measure an ad by how loud it was, how many awards it collected or how many people saw it, as if remembering were a matter of volume. But the ones we still hum, quote and retell at family tables seem to have done something quieter. They found a feeling people already had and gave it a home.

How I chose these campaigns

“Best” is a personal word, so here is what I looked for. Each campaign had to be one that people still talk about long after the media plan ended. Each one also had to sound like India, in its language, its humour and its habits. And each had to hold a single idea steady for years. This isn’t a ranking, only five stories I find myself going back to.

1. Amul: the little girl who commented on the day

Amul’s butter girl is the one I’d start with. Sylvester daCunha and his art director Eustace Fernandez created the campaign in 1966, wanting something that would appeal to mothers and children. Print and television were costly then, so it was designed for the more affordable outdoor hoardings. yourstorythebetterindia

She didn’t stay a mascot for long. She became a witness, commenting on cricket, cinema and politics through topical hoardings. It may be the only campaign in the country to keep the same theme and style for almost 50 years, and it holds the Guinness World Record for the longest-running advertising campaign. The agency once made one topical a month; today it makes five a week. Amul girl golden jubilee +2

What stays with me is the patience. The product is butter, but what people remember is a girl they feel they know.

2. Mile Sur Mera Tumhara: a country humming one tune

This one isn’t selling anything, which may be why it lasted. The brief was to package a country into a five-minute jingle in 14 languages. It aired on Doordarshan on 15 August 1988, after the Prime Minister’s Independence Day speech. Pandit Bhimsen Joshi composed the music, and the lyrics were by Piyush Pandey, then an account manager, after seventeen drafts were rejected. Ogilvy celebrates two decades of ‘Mile Sur Mera Tumhara’ +2

Perhaps its quiet strength was in how it spoke. Pandey himself reflected that it let people breathe in patriotism instead of having it forced on them. storyboard18

It’s also worth remembering the 2010 follow-up. One writer argued that in the digital age, the original’s words couldn’t compete with the overload of images. That’s an opinion, but I think it points at something true: some stories belong to the moment that gave them room. newslaundry

3. Cadbury Dairy Milk: the girl who ran onto the pitch

You probably remember it without trying. A batsman hits a century, and a young woman slips past the boundary to dance with joy, a bar of Dairy Milk in her hand. The ad is credited with changing the perception that chocolate is only for children, and with tying the brand to a sense of freedom. exchange4media

Sources date it differently. Some say 1993, others 1994, so I’ll say early 1990s. What I find lovely is that it was revisited. In 2021, the roles were reversed: a woman scores the winning runs and her partner runs onto the field to dance, ending with #GoodLuckGirls. A story that can be told again, a little differently, is a story with roots. exchange4media

4. Fevicol: humour that never explains itself

Fevicol sells glue, and it has almost never shown glue holding two pieces of wood. In the 1996 “Egg” film, a chicken eats from a Fevicol pack and lays an egg that won’t break. The film deliberately avoided hammering home that Fevicol has the strongest bond, leaving the audience to fill in the blanks. storyboard18storyboard18

Then came the overloaded bus. It won a Silver Lion at Cannes Lions in 2002. The shoot was moved to Rajasthan because Piyush Pandey had noticed overcrowded buses there, and the realness shows. The ad entered everyday speech, and in 2014 the Prime Minister described India-Japan ties as stronger than a Fevicol bond. When Fevicol ‘Bus’ ad stuck its way to a Silver Lion at Cannes Lions 2002 +2

The lesson I take is that the brand trusted the audience to complete the joke, and the audience rewarded that trust.

5. Surf Excel: दाग अच्छे हैं

This is the campaign I’d call the gentlest reframe. In 2005, when detergent ads were focused on function, Surf Excel and Lowe Lintas moved away from it with “Daag Acche Hain”. The first film showed two siblings, and the line was that if a stain comes from doing something good, then the stain is good. socialsamosasocialsamosa

It kept growing with the culture. The Holi film #RangLaayeSang showed a girl choosing to be coloured so that she could protect her friend. In 2021 the hashtag changed from “Daag” to #RangAccheHai. A good idea can listen, and adjust, and still sound like itself. lbbonlinesocialsamosa

What these campaigns share

This part is my own reading, not from the sources.

• One idea, held for a long time. Each of them stayed with a single thought and let it deepen.
• A feeling before a feature. Butter, chocolate, glue and detergent all became something else: wit, joy, togetherness, kindness.
• Indian life as the language. Hoardings, Doordarshan, buses, cricket, Holi. These were the places people already lived.
• Trust in the audience. None of them over-explains.

That, to me, is what separates a campaign people remember from one they scroll past. It is also what I mean by brand storytelling.

What I took from them in my own work

When I designed MITTI, a luxury fragrance concept, I began with a wish to make a beautiful heritage piece. Halfway through I realised it had no backstory and no research behind it, and that I’d treated looking good as the finish line. These five campaigns are the reason I went back and began from the memory first. Every one of them starts with a feeling and builds outward.

If you’d like company in this

If you’re building something rooted in a memory and aren’t sure how to tell it, I’d be glad to help. You can find the details on my Work With Me page.