The campaign that cooked up chaos

Let me take you back to the beginning, the day this campaign for Haldiram’s Restaurant walked into our lives like a bowl of hot manchow soup on a rainy day: comforting… but with a chilli kick you weren’t expecting.

The brief sounded deceptively simple:

“Launch Haldiram’s Restaurant - New Chinese Mania menu. Make it big. Make people crave it.”

Now, here’s the thing about advertising: “big” is a lovely word until you’re the one holding the pen (or in our case, the chopsticks).

“Big” means expectation.

“Big” means responsibility.

“Big” means someone is definitely going to say ‘Let’s change the whole thing’ when you’re two days away from shoot. 

This wasn’t just another menu launch. It was about making Haldiram’s Restaurant, a brand already known for comfort food, suddenly own the Chinese food space, a territory overflowing with choices. Our task? Not to tell people it’s delicious… but to make them feel it. The midnight-scroll-on-and-order-now kind of feeling.

The big realisation (and many bowls of noodles later)

We started with research, which is code for eating everything we could get our hands on. Between observation trips, long lunch breaks that suspiciously turned into market visits, and interrogating friends about their noodle-eating habits, one insight kept bubbling up:

Everyone eats Chinese differently.

There’s the chopstick purist, the one who refuses to even look at a fork. Then there’s the fork warrior, twirling noodles like they’re training for a pasta-eating championship. And then… there’s the freestyle eater. The ones who create an entire art form with their hands, mid-bite noodles dangling, sauces dripping, head tilts worthy of a dance number.

That was our “aha” moment. This wasn’t just food. It was personality. And that’s exactly how we decided to position Haldiram’s Chinese menu: Chinese Mania, not as just another dish, but as an experience unique to every eater.

The pitch that should have been a disaster

Of course, before we got there, we had that pitch.

It was a late night. The office smelled like noodles and ambition. Someone (probably me, though I’ll deny it in court) blurted out:

“Marta hua insaan bhi zinda ho jaayega Chinese khaa ke.”

Did we know it would never pass? Absolutely. Did we still pitch it? 100%.

Because here’s the thing, in the trenches of campaign building, you throw the outrageous on the table. Sometimes it gets you the laugh that loosens the room. And that night, it did more than that; it told the client we weren’t here to play safe.

For the first time, you could feel the room shift from polite nods to, “Alright, let’s see how far you can take this.”

From epic film to one honest table

Our first treatment? Oh, it was grand. Multiple locations. Street chaos. Steaming woks. Extras bustling around. It was basically musical… but with noodles.

And then came the feedback.

One round. Two rounds. Four rounds. Somewhere in that loop, it hit us: the magic wasn’t in the spectacle. It was in the truth.

So we stripped it back. One location. One table. One idea: show real, relatable, messy joy.

Three months of stir-fried madness

The restaurant became our set and our second home for the next three months.

We choreographed noodle twirls like dance moves. Spring rolls had to land just so in mid-laughter shots. Soup steam had to rise dramatically like a fog machine in a rock concert. And every time we nailed it, someone (usually the DOP) would say, “One more for safety.”

We battled real customers who wandered into the frame mid-take. We staged debates over whether a noodle pull should be 3 inches or 5 inches for maximum drama. And the hardest part? Keeping the food camera-perfect while hungry crew members circled like hawks.

I’m not exaggerating when I say we had more noodle-related arguments in those weeks than most couples have in a year.

The launch & the laughs

When #EatItDifferently finally dropped, it didn’t just get views; it sparked conversations.

People tagged friends: “This is literally you.”
Chopstick masters called out fork warriors. Fork warriors fired back.
Mini noodle challenges popped up. Eating styles became personality traits.

We weren’t just selling food. We’d tapped into something personal, a tiny slice of everyday life that felt like it belonged to everyone.

Looking back

This campaign worked because it was honest. We didn’t overcomplicate it. We let it breathe. We celebrated the quirks, the chaos, the way people eat, not just the food itself.

And yes… every time I see someone pull noodles dramatically in slow motion, I still think, if you ask me, that plate could probably bring the dead back to life.

This article is penned by Jyoti Chugh Bhatia, Group Director, Gozoop Group.

Disclaimer: The article features the opinion of the author and does not necessarily reflect the stance of the publication.