How vernacular branded content property from Fortune Edible Oils and Foods went viral among Bengalis of West Bengal

‘Pet Pujo’, which translates into worshipping the stomach, is a brand property created by Fortune Edible Oils and Foods to celebrate every Bengali’s love for food. The central theme revolves around the plethora of dishes that take centre stage during Durga Puja and their significance in a foodie Bengali’s Pujo celebration.

The property was created in 2017 centred around the emotional rollercoaster of what every Bengali goes through from Mahalaya to Dashami in anticipation of the sheer variety of feasting options during Puja. The story was performed and accentuated by Sawan Dutta in her signature sing-song style, which gave the story its unique flavour.

In 2018, Abar Pet Pujo (season 2) took the narrative inside a quintessential Bengali household, co-created with Sawan Dutta again, showing the intensity and tension that builds up in a Bengali kitchen during Pujo food preparation.

In 2019, Pet Pujo Parikrama (Season 3) narrated the story of a ‘Bangal’ husband and his ‘Ghoti’ wife and their light-hearted banter on whose relatives prepare better Pujo food.

Last year, Fortune Edible Oils and Foods wanted to connect with their audience to share and spread the festive spirit of celebrating from home.

Last year, the Durga Puja celebrations were deemed to be different from yesteryears, but Fortune Edible Oils and Foods wanted to use this opportunity to connect with the Bengali community and tell a story entwined with the current mood and the brand story through Fortune Kachi Ghani Mustard Oil. The objective was to spread a positive message about embracing the ‘new normal’ and uplifting the festive mood.

Idea: The two most important things during every Durga Puja are pandal hopping and indulging in traditional and authentic Bengali cuisine. Every conversation at the table is incomplete without discussing how they would cover all the pandals in their town.

Hence, the brand decided to create a roadmap for the people of Bengal, which they could explore from their home, without missing out the delicious food during the five days of Pujo.

Execution: This virtual roadmap was not the route to the best Pandal in Kolkata but the best dishes one could enjoy on which day. Fortune identified the most popular Pandal destinations and replaced them with a dish: like Maddox Square became Khichuri Square. Khichuri is a special Bengali dish which is also offered to Goddess Durga.

This story of the Food Roadmap was narrated by a typical Bengali couple, where the wife felt grim over the pandemic spoiling her favourite festival. The husband came to the rescue immediately, suggesting they follow this food roadmap to keep up with the spirit of Pujo celebration in this new normal.

Media scheduling and distribution: The video amplification strategy was designed to reach maximum people through digital networking effect and use of multi-platform media.

1. Multi-platform strategy

Facebook was used as the primary platform to promote the video and engage the Bengali community in brand conversations, followed by YouTube and Instagram. WhatsApp was used to seed and flame the video in peer-to-peer networks on mobile. Instead of using just the Brand Page, they opted to cross leverage the reach and authenticity of Facebook’s Bengali community pages as well as publishers.

1. Media scheduling

The video went live on the weekend before the Pujo break began in Bengal. From the second day, Bengali influencers and content creators Kolkata Buzz, Bong Sense, Oh Kolkata, Amazing Kolkata and Bong Stuff released the video in partnership with Fortune Edible Oils and Foods.

Alongside with WhatsApp, the video on Zee5 fired up too. The brand’s daily news partner, Anandobazar Patrika, also fired up the promotions for the ‘Pet Pujo Parikrama’ in the new normal.

Result

The campaign recorded a total view of 3.9M+ across platforms for both English and Bengali subtitled videos. Facebook alone received 3.5M+ views, with 42K+ reactions, 550+ comments and 3.3 K+ shares.

On Facebook, the influencer partnership garnered a total video view of 30.9K+ with The Kolkata Buzz contributing 78% of the total views.

On Facebook, 790K+ females in the age group of 25-34 years was the most engaged audience group, while on YouTube, over 47.2% female viewers aged 25 and above watched their video. This broke the previous year record of the video.

Last year, the brand broke the previous year’s record on YouTube with over 49% of the total viewers watching the entire video. But the real success was noted when the viewers engaged with on Facebook via threads of comment and talked about the relatability of the content.                                                        

Brand love and audience delight:

Capturing the nuances of a Bengali household with regional and vernacular treatment led to the widespread acceptance of the video in the Bengali community.

Viewers shared their Pet Pujo roadmap images with Fortune in comments, telling about the special dish they are going to prepare on which day. Some were even kind to share the recipe of their dish with other women in the Fortune Edible Oils and Foods community.  

But the one theme that stood out among the other discussion about food was about men cooking for their wife and loved ones. Females were overjoyed with this concept to introduce it in their own household in Durga Puja.

Female viewers shared the dishes prepared by their husbands on Pujo day.

Some female viewers were delighted by the progressive thought expressed by Fortune Edible Oils and Foods, and how this made them happier than any other communication in recent times.

The campaign was successful in sparking a conversation among young couples that engaged with the brand as well as sharing their preparations for ‘Pet Pujo’.

Some viewers recalled past Pet Pujo videos and compared the earlier videos with that of last year. They also talked about which one was their favourite.

Conversations like these with the audience talking about the core message, tagging their friends and about their positive experience with the product is what makes this campaign a special and a successful one.