In this heartfelt tribute, industry veteran Shiv Shivakumar recalls an important chapter from 1995, when Taj Mahal Tea was at a crossroads, and how Zakir Hussain’s association with the brand almost came to an unexpected end.
We are republishing this insightful account from Shiv Shivakumar’s LinkedIn handle, with his consent, as part of our homage to the legendary Ustad. The story, as Shiv remembers, is one of creative challenges, invaluable insights, and ultimately, the brilliance that Ustad Zakir brought not just to his art, but to the world of branding.
“In 1995 the Taj Tea brand was not growing in its 30 th year. I was the Marketing Manager, the bright Rukmini Gupte was the senior brand manager, Atishi Pradhan was the Account Planner from JWT.
We looked at all consumer research and the consumer said “The tabalchi comes plays the tabla says Wah Taj”. There was a wallpaper effect. As a team we decided to drop Zakir and we checked about 6 new concepts with upcoming Indian maestros. The verdict, surprisingly consumers said Zakir was in his own league and these stars couldn’t touch him.
I was in London and went to meet the Unilever advertising guru Michael Bronsten. He was aghast that I was planning to drop Zakir. He said “You have no clue between you and the agency. You are getting wallpaper feedback because you are producing wallpaper advertising.” That was the slap we needed.
Then the team of Laurie Robertson, John Stuart, Atishi Pradhan, Deepa, Jagdip Bakshi and Rukmini got down to work and we built new advertising contexting Zakir, his flair and the Taj aroma magic. We went from Zakir coming into the Taj brand world to the brand entering Zakir’s world.
In the first relaunch advertisement we had an American reporter who uses Taj Tea to get an interview with Zakir. When the Hindustan Lever board saw it, they didn’t like it. They said “Taj is quintessentially Indian, why do you have a foreigner in it.” We refuted their feedback and the brand then grew double digit for the next three years at a 200 index price point to the industry average. Sanjay Khosla, our boss believed in it and backed it.
Sanidhi Patel was his business manager. After the success of the relaunch, Zakir had dinner with a few senior managers of Hindustan Lever. It was full of fun, he was a great story teller and had great charisma.
A few years later, Zakir told me and Jagdip “You guys have done such a great job of linking me to Taj that other brands test my name for advertising and consumers tell them this is the Taj Ustad.” He never took any other offer.
He was just as proud of the brand as we were about his legendary talent.
RIP Ustad. We carry fond memories of the great magic you created in reviving the brand.
Shiv
Special Note as mentioned by Shiv: ‘Picture courtesy Prakash in Chennai who got this autograph of the caricature he did for Zakir.’
