MAM
Milind Soman gets a healthy slice of fun in The Health Factory’s new film
MUMBAI: Even the fittest man in India can get schooled especially when it comes to bread. In its latest campaign, The Health Factory (THF), makers of India’s first zero maida and protein bread, ropes in fitness icon Milind Soman for a witty twist that puts health on the daily menu. The brand film flips the script with humour at its core: a bemused Milind finds himself playfully corrected by health-obsessed youngsters who introduce him to “the fittest bread in town.” The irony is deliberate positioning THF as the everyday essential that champions exactly what Milind embodies: authenticity, simplicity, and consistency in health.
The campaign is part of THF’s rebranding push under its philosophy All for Health. Health for All. With refreshed packaging, clean-label promises, and a sharper brand voice, THF wants to shift focus from being “just the zero maida bread brand” back to being a lifestyle choice for better eating.
“We wanted to bring the spotlight back to The Health Factory as the brand, not just the product,” said The Health Factory senior brand manager Meghraj Bangera, noting that Milind’s cross-generational appeal made him the perfect fit. The Health Factory CEO Vinay Maheshwari added, “Health shouldn’t be complicated, it’s about simple, right choices every day.”
For Milind, the fit was natural: “Bread is a staple in so many diets. Making it healthier without losing taste is such a powerful idea,” he said.
With a presence in 16 cities and retail, q-commerce, and e-commerce channels, THF has already entered over 2 million households across India. Now, with Milind in its corner and a playful slice of humour, the brand is hoping to make every bite count in its mission to turn bread into a symbol of cleaner eating.
AD Agencies
Fevicol releases its last ad campaign by the late Piyush Pandey
The adhesive brand’s last campaign by the late advertising legend Piyush Pandey turns an everyday Indian obsession into a quietly powerful metaphor
MUMBAI: Fevicol has never needed much of a plot. A sticky bond, a wry observation, a truth that every Indian instantly recognises — that has always been enough. “Kursi Pe Nazar,” the brand’s latest television commercial, is no different. And yet it carries a weight that no previous Fevicol film has had to bear: it is the last one its creator, the advertising legend Piyush Pandey, will ever make.
The film, released on Tuesday by Pidilite Industries, fixes its gaze on the kursi — the chair — and what it means in Indian life. Not just as a piece of furniture, but as a currency of ambition, a vessel of authority, and a source of quiet social drama that plays out in every home, office and institution across the country. Who sits in the chair, who waits for it, and who eyes it hungrily from across the room: the film transforms this sharply observed cultural truth into a narrative that is, in the best Fevicol tradition, funny, warm and instantly familiar.
The campaign was Pandey’s idea. He discussed it in detail with the team before his death, but did not live to see it shot. Prasoon Pandey, director at Corcoise Films who helmed the commercial, said the team needed five months to find its footing before they felt ready to shoot. “This was the toughest film ever for all of us,” he said. “It was Piyush’s idea, magical as always.”
The emotional weight of that responsibility was not lost on the team at Ogilvy India, which created the campaign. Kainaz Karmakar and Harshad Rajadhyaksha, group chief creative officers at Ogilvy India, described the process as “a pilgrimage of sorts, on the path that Piyush created not just for Ogilvy, but for our entire profession.”
Sudhanshu Vats, managing director of Pidilite Industries, said the film was rooted in a distinctly Indian insight. “The ‘kursi’ symbolises aspiration, transition, and ambition,” he said. “Piyush Pandey had an extraordinary ability to elevate such everyday observations into iconic storytelling for Fevicol. This film carries that legacy forward.”
That legacy is considerable. Over several decades, Pandey’s partnership with Fevicol produced some of the most beloved advertising in Indian history, building the brand into something rare: a household name that people actively enjoy watching sell to them.
“Kursi Pe Nazar” does not try to be a tribute. It simply tries to be a great Fevicol film. By most measures, it succeeds — which is, in the end, the most fitting send-off of all.
