If you have ever stayed alone with friends for an extended period of time, maybe while in college or just starting out in your career, you will have tasted Maggi at least once by now. India’s favourite instant noodle brand by far, it was the staple food for a lot of young people who either didn’t have the time or the skills to cool a gourmet meal in a hurry. Sure, it always took more than the widely touted “Ready in 2 minutes” to make, but still, nothing could come close to Maggi when it comes to speed and convenience in the kitchen.
Then the authorities that be in India banned the brand from the country altogether when they found that it contained unexpectedly high levels of monosodium glutamate, as well as up to 17 times the permissible limit of lead. The international brand, owned by Swiss giant Nestle, was swiftly withdrawn from the market, but no amount of government ruling could erase it from the hearts of the people who have grown to love the brand. Yippee Noodles, a pretender to the throne vacated by Maggi in India, might have seen an uptick in its business since then, but it is nowhere the cultural phenomenon that Maggi once was, is.
And now, the good folks over at the Bombay High Court had set aside the countrywide ban on nine variants of Maggi instant noodles, saying the national food regulator had acted in an “arbitrary” manner and not followed the “principles of natural justice” while banning the product.
To celebrate this, Nestle has released a series of video ads with the hashtag and tagline: “#WeMissYouToo.”
The premise is simple: a young man reminisces about all the good times he had preparing and eating the noodles, either alone or with friends. The clock then moves forward to the present and he is dejected because Maggi is no longer sold in the market. In search of alternatives, our man does some stuff that he has never done before, like obsequiously greeting the elderly neighbor lady, with the hope that she shares some of her home-cooked meal with him. In another one, a guy narrates his woes over having to order restaurant food.
It is all very subtly done, and Maggi has accomplished what it set out to: tug at the heartstrings of the people who miss the brand. We missed you as well, Maggi. Welcome back.
