In India, when something is exceptionally good, there is a familiar reaction: Nazar na lage.

Vadilal and Parle’s Hide & Seek found an interesting way to turn this everyday expression into the foundation of a product launch. Their campaign, Jodi Aisi Ki Nazar Na Lage, introduces Vadilal Hide & Seek Ice Cream through a combination of chocolate chips, cookie crunch and creamy ice cream, with the familiar evil-eye symbol connecting the entire campaign.

But the interesting part is not just the product combination. It is how the brands transformed a cultural expression into a marketing idea that could generate curiosity, encourage participation and create conversations.

1. Turning Cultural Familiarity into Brand Recall

Nazar na lage is more than an expression in Indian households. It reflects how people respond to something special, beautiful or worth celebrating.

The brands brought this familiar sentiment into the context of their collaboration, presenting the product as a pairing worth protecting from the evil eye.

Instead of relying on conventional product messaging, they built the communication around something consumers already understand.

The marketing insight: Sometimes, the strongest creative ideas do not come from inventing something new but from giving familiar cultural behaviours a fresh context.

2. One Creative Idea, Multiple Touchpoints

The evil-eye symbol became more than a campaign visual. It served as a recurring identity across the launch communication.

By carrying the same creative thought across digital platforms and activations, the campaign created a consistent association between the product and its central message.

This is an important aspect of brand recall. When consumers encounter a recognisable symbol repeatedly across different interactions, it becomes easier to associate it with the brand.

For marketers, the lesson is to develop campaign ideas that can travel across formats without losing their identity.

3. Moving Beyond Visibility to Participation

A product launch can generate attention, but getting consumers to experience and interact with the product creates another level of engagement.

The campaign extends its central nazar narrative across different activations, with each stage serving a purpose: building curiosity, encouraging product trials, creating playful interactions and motivating consumers to share their experiences.

This connects different stages of the consumer journey rather than treating every promotional activity as an isolated effort.

The takeaway? An activation should do more than generate footfall or photographs. It should bring consumers closer to discovering, experiencing or remembering the product.

4. Making Brand Collaboration Meaningful

Vadilal brings its ice cream expertise, while Parle contributes the established identity and familiarity of Hide & Seek.

The collaboration takes a recognisable biscuit experience into a new consumption category, offering consumers a different way to enjoy a familiar brand.

The campaign then gives this product combination its own personality through Jodi Aisi Ki Nazar Na Lage.

This highlights an important principle: successful brand collaborations should create more than shared visibility. The product itself should give consumers a reason to be interested.

The Gujpreneur Takeaway: Make The Idea Bigger Than The Announcement

The Jodi Aisi Ki Nazar Na Lage campaign offers three useful lessons for marketers:

• Start with consumer insight: Everyday habits, cultural expressions and shared emotions can become powerful foundations for brand storytelling.
  
• Build a consistent campaign identity: One strong creative idea can connect advertising, digital communication and physical activations.
  
• Design for participation: Give consumers opportunities to experience, interact with and share the product rather than limiting communication to advertisements.
  

Ultimately, effective marketing is not just about how often consumers see a brand. It is about what they remember after the interaction.

Vadilal and Hide & Seek demonstrate how a familiar cultural expression can give a new product a distinctive identity and a story worth sharing.

Because sometimes, the smartest way to make a new combination memorable is to build on something everyone already knows.

For more insights on branding, marketing strategies and Gujarat’s evolving business landscape, explore Gujpreneur, your source for business stories and perspectives.