The brief and wondrous life of Grameenphone's Djuice

The Amitabh Reza Chowdhury-directed first Djuice TV commercial, which aired on Bangladeshi televisions in 2005, did not even mention the word SIM card, or even a mobile phone handset, even though the product was essentially a SIM card that offered specific features. 

And yet, the commercial became a massive hit. 

Instead of simply introducing a product, the advertisement introduced a subculture. It tapped into the colloquial vocabulary of the youth of the time - their carefree and 'unpolished' use of language. As the brand grew, it curated colloquial 'youth' proverbs and phrases, including 'Kothin bhab', 'jotil bhasha' and 'abar jigay', along with packages labelled Xtra Khatir or Hariye Jao. 

Almost two decades ago, telco giant Grameenphone teamed up with advertising agency Bitopi  to take the Bangladeshi mobile subscription market by storm. Launched on 14 April 2005, Djuice quickly became a marketing marvel, capturing unprecedented popularity and growth. Some even go as far as to say Djuice ushered in a 'cultural shift' in the realms of advertising and brand image. 

Its marketing prowess gave rise to the "Mama, ekta Djuice sim dao" (Give me a Djuice SIM, uncle) request at every corner from the mid to late 2000s.

There was another key cornerstone of Djuice: affordability. 

"I remember the posters prior to the launch of the SIM card. The call rate was Tk1.5 which was really affordable compared to the standard call rate of Tk7. Besides, you could add multiple people as your FnF numbers and do conference calls," said Zibran, who was a 10th grader in 2005. Zibran went on to get a Djuice SIM card on the very first day of its launch. 

But Djuice did not stop there. It offered an unprecedented package where the customer could talk all night for free, especially considering the high call rates at the time. This essentially offered the scope to digitise midnight addas. And Djuice did so at a time before social media platforms, specifically instant messaging apps, came into the scene.  

"Even before I started working with the team in 2008, what fascinated me was how Djuice mixed Bangla and English. The language we use in our daily life had no recognition [in commercial space] before Djuice came. It was assumed by default that whatever language the youth used was bad and unacceptable," said Sharmin Rahman, a former copywriter at Bitopi and current head of Corporate Brand and Engagements at Grameenphone.

This unique use of language, however, also drew the ire of people in equal measure, and by the first year of its launch, Djuice became a word synonymous with everything 'wrong' with the young generation.

The youth-based mobile phone plan from Telenor (Grameenphone's parent company in Bangladesh) was also available in Sweden, Norway, Malaysia, New Zealand, Thailand, Ukraine, Hungary, Montenegro, and Pakistan at the time. But in less than a decade since its launch, Djuice was put aside by Grameenphone and eventually, its operational capacity was substantially limited. 

It was reportedly "a business decision based on "sustainability" by Grameenphone. No further explanation was offered. 

The Business Standard spoke with the people who engineered the marketing plans for Djuice and industry insiders, to take a look at one of the most successful marketing campaigns in the country – that too before social media.

Designing a strategic disruption    

As Djuice found success in the early 2000s in different countries, Telenor began eyeing Bangladesh as its next target, due to the country's large young demography.  

Before the launch, Bitopi conducted a focus group discussion by inviting a group of young individuals, some of them only past their teens, as part of the market research. 

Tanvir Hossain, the creative group head of Bitopi, said that Bitopi's founder Reza Ali used to organise workshops and training sessions facilitated by trainers from different countries to groom the team. 

"This is where, as a team, we learnt about consumer language. If we can't communicate with the target group in the language they use for everyday purposes, they won't be able to connect with the product. The advertisement will feel like an essay or someone else's artwork. It won't feel like their friends are talking with them," Tanvir explained.  

The discussion report revealed that the Djuice target group had a very different attitude, language and style than any other customer segment they had worked with – and this took the Bitopi team back to the drawing board, scrapping their initial materials.  

One of the most consequential decisions by the campaign designers was to strategically and directly bring the youth into the advertisements. "We started to figure out what the youth culture is and how to launch a campaign that would talk with them, instead of talking to them," added Awrup Sanyal, the creative head of Bitopi at the time.

"This was a huge disruption at the time; all the other brands of Bangladesh used very formal and bookish language, whereas Djuice used street language or the language of the youth," Tanvir added. 

Even Grameenphone, which generally produced traditional and conventional advertisements, was charting into new territory with Djuice. The target group was primarily college and university students residing in metropolitan cities. 

The Bitopi team then had to pitch their ideas to Telenor and Grameenphone. 

"They'd never heard of anything like that before. There was a little bit of doubt. But part of the team was young," recalled Awrup, adding that they understood. "The Norwegians understood it [too]. They loved the stories we told them. But the senior people in Grameenphone were reluctant, thinking all these might create controversies. 

"They were, of course, not wrong," said Awrup. 

Backlash and the 'Djuice' phenomenon  

From its first year of launch, Djuice received a massive deal of backlash because of its unique use of 'unpolished' language and promotion of youth culture. 

One open letter to the editor of a leading Bangladeshi newspaper (dated 19 August 2005) reads, "I understand that Bangla has survived through aeons, however, my point is that the Djuice billboards expose and encourage youngsters to use words like 'fao' and 'tashki', which I think is wrong. It's all right and normal to talk informally when friends are around but encouragement from huge advertisements focusing on such words is indecent."

Another letter published in the same newspaper (dated 9 September 2005) raises a similar concern about the distortion of Bangla. "In these ads, English alphabets are used to write Bangla, which inspires the youth to write the language that way – a severe offence against the language. Moreover, the television commercials of Djuice hardly make sense, promoting foolishness through meaningless language and actions. I hope GP takes some sensible action to make sure the international brand does not harm our culture in any way."

Actor Assaduzaman Noor, former Cultural Affairs Minister, had been critical about phenomenons such as Djuice in the past, and continues to be a critic of distortion of language in popular media. 

"I have voiced my concerns in the past. The language [the dialogue] used in drama by let's say [Mostafa Sarwar] Farooqi shouldn't be that way," he said, adding, "If the creator [who scripts these darma/advertisement campaigns] wants to use [modified Bangla language in such a manner], then I do not accept [this kind of] creativity."

The former minister said creators have a responsibility. "When language/dialogue is presented in the media for mass consumption, creators need to pay attention to the impact, repercussions and implications," he said.     

But throughout such backlash, Djuice prevailed. Grameenphone took the heat - according to Awrup Sanyal, the creative head of Bitopi at the time - and continued to support Djuice and its brand image. 

From the beginning, it was clear that the brand was solely focused on the youth, and the youth fully reciprocated. This happened because, for the first time in Bangladesh, the target audience was the youth rather than a family unit or head of the family. Djuice effectively bypassed the patriarch on a national level. 

"There was this idea back then that in a conservative society like Bangladesh, Djuice was something radical. If you ask me, Djuice was not radical. Young people were already radical in their own ways, figuring out what they wanted. They were becoming a big population, a big demography. And they had some power and say," said Awrup.

Djuice then started expanding through strategic partnerships with brands and companies like Star Cineplex, Pizza Hut, Cats Eye, etc. They launched a membership card called Xtra Khatir for Djuice subscribers that allowed the cardholders extra benefits for various purchases.  

"The addas [informal gatherings] surrounding the tongs [tea stalls] were also shifting to small lounges and cafes. So you could see the murmuring of a consumerist, materialist kind of economy that was developing, and at the centre of this were the young people," explained Awrup. 

The youth group that could afford the throbbing urban Dhaka was expanding in size. "Even within the active youth, we noticed nuances. That pushed the brand to change as well. We kept up with the changes too – with the new music that came up, new fashion that was coming out and new kinds of jobs that were becoming popular," Awrup added. 

Awrup realised the scope for Djuice when he travelled across the country to promote DRockstar – a televised music competition. 

"It was quite surprising to learn that the youth outside Dhaka listen to Linkin Park as well, thanks to technology," he said, adding, "It was a big revelation for me - how deeply globalisation and its cultural hegemony had taken hold of Bangladesh." 

Awrup would not say Djuice spearheaded this spread of Western cultural hegemony, but it definitely helped build the road or pathway. "It was catering to it and reinforcing it, and thus was giving it a structure. And it was inevitable – if Djuice didn't do it, some other brand would," he added. 

The brand dove deep into the youth psyche and successfully used elements in its marketing to first attract them, then sustain them and consequentially expand the target group. Music and the theme of friendship were heavily used in Djuice's ads. 

"We took a song by the band The Watson Brothers and then rewrote it for us. We launched the dynamic logo with this song," recalled Sharmin Rahman, a former copywriter at Bitopi and current head of Corporate Brand and Engagements at Grameenphone. The commercial was a hit. 

At the time when Djuice was reaching its peak, Sharmin wrote a song "Tumi ki shara dibe" for a commercial. The concept was centred on friendship and the idea was when an individual seeks out others, like-minded people will respond. For the commercial, a collaboration between musicians such as Emran, Fuad and Jon Kabir was suggested, then pursued – something that was relatively new for the advertising world. 

"Both [Fuad and Jon] composed the music. John helped me with the chorus as I was very new to this. Then we took the fourth stanza from a poem Awrup wrote. When John included this song in an album, all of us got credit because it was a collaborative effort," Sharmin recalled.  

"I remember The Daily Star did an editorial piece on Djuice when it was launched. The headline was 'The Djuice generation is here'. The generation itself became bigger than Djuice, they made the brand their own," said Awrup. 

The end

By 2012, the Djuice hype shrivelled to a great extent and its last major campaign was a tribute to the national poet Kazi Nazrul Islam. 

After that, Grameenphone officials decided to focus more on other brands and continue Djuice just as a package. Why the decision to stop the marketing of Djuice was taken is not exactly clear, especially when the brand was garnering profit, according to industry insiders. 

Despite its raging popularity, why did Djuice – or the overzealous hype that captured a generation's imagination – die down? 

The Business Standard recently spoke to Khairul Bashar, the former head of Communications at Grameenphone. He said he was not at liberty to comment on Djuice, revenue generation or anything else about the company, because of legal reasons. 

When Grameenphone was asked, they only cited "sustainability" as a cause. After repeated attempts for further explanation from Grameenphone, we were not able to get a response. 

When asked what might be the reason for the decline of Djuice, Tanvir Hossain said, "We have no way to dig up the exact reasons. It can be that the decision was taken by Telenor at an international level, and not something Grameenphone decided for themselves." 

Speculations varied from Grameenphone putting too much of its resources and focus on one brand and then backtracking; to Djuice becoming so big that it was gobbling up the mother brand's share of customers. 

Or, since Djuice was a youth brand, it based itself on affordability and youth culture, and it was becoming difficult for the mother brand to sustain it. Or perhaps it struggled to attract new youths as its original youth target group had matured into adults by 2012. 

"Parents' opinion is very important in terms of sustainability," said Dr Mohammad Shahidul Islam, Assistant Professor, BRAC Business School, adding, "Think about it, unlike in the western parts of the world, young adults generally live with their parents or family. Once they step into their homes, they can't really flaunt that Djuice tag on their bags perhaps. These things matter." 

Another observation that he made was, "the campaign was not exactly inclusive," pointing at how it left out a large youth population in the country, the madrasa students and the more pious households. "It [campaign] divided people," explained Dr Islam, and that sort of marketing campaign tends to have a short shelf life. 

But one thing, even after nearly two decades, is clear - Djuice left a lasting impression. 

"If we look at other campaigns after Djuice, we will see that advertising in Bangladesh changed for good. Djuice was the watershed moment in advertising and I am not saying it [just] because I worked for it," concluded Awrup.