What’s kuch khaas about the iconic Cadbury Dairy Milk ad?

Part two of the pilot episode of Storyboard18’s Brand Blitz Quiz saw the eruption of a rather interesting conversation about one of the most iconic ads from the 90’s. Quiz master Sai Ganesh posed a question to brand expert Lloyd Mathias that showed pictures of five individuals and Mathias had to guess which ad those pictures were referring to.

The pictures were of a cricketer being kissed by a fan on field, Ogilvy’s ad legend Piyush Pandey, Musicians Shankar Mahadevan, Gary Lawyer and Louis Banks. If you haven’t guessed it already, the answer is Cadbury Dairy Milk’s renowned ‘Kuch Khaas Hai Zindagi Main’ advertisement.

Mathias shared the intriguing story behind the evergreen advert. It was in the 60’s when Indian cricketer Abbas Ali Baig was in between an excellent innings when a female fan jumped onto the field and ran across to plant a kiss on the cricketer’s face. It was that incident that sparked the inspiration in Piyush Pandey and Ogilvy conceptualised the famous 90’s ad for Cadbury.

The ad became so popular that Ogilvy remade the ad in 2021 with a role reversal. A female cricketer on the pitch and her Sardar boyfriend running onto the pitch to show his appreciation for her. Ganesh went on to share another fact about the ad. The famous song featured in the ad was originally written in English. However, it was then re-written in Hindi for it to work across India.

Mathias too went on to share another piece of trivia. There was in fact, another famous cricketer who got pecked on the cheek by a female fan who ran onto the field in the late 70’s. Brijesh Patel, now the president of the KSCA (Karnataka State Cricket Association) was kissed on the cheek by a female fan after he scored a half century.

We guess, getting kisses on the cheek during a match was quite the thing back in the day. The modern equivalent in today’s time would probably be getting hit by an empty plastic bottle.