Think of Nirma and the picture of a dancing girl in white frock with the familiar jingle ‘Washing powder Nirma’ comes to mind. In a re-branding exercise, Nirma has now decided to redefine itself and is going in for a new commercial worth over a crore of rupees.

The new advertisement has been created by ad agency Taproot India, with Agnello Dias and Santosh Padhi as the creative heads. The brief given to the agency by Nirma was to create an advertisement that matches up to the increasing aspirational levels of its customers and give it a modern look, said sources. So, soon enough you may see the ‘Jayas, Hemas and Sushmas’ of the world being replaced by Russian ballet dancers, performing underwater with opera music in the background. The company has also re-recorded the old jingle in a modern way, which is expected to go on air soon as the background score for the new ad.

The new commercial has retained the girl in the frock who appears toward the end of 60-second television commercial. “We wanted to borrow something from the brand and make it relevant for today’s world. We did not want to do demo ad showing the before and after-effects,” said Santosh Padhi, chief creative officer, Taproot India.

With the new ad, there is also a change in the positioning and the image of the brand. Nirma, which has been known as a mass brand, has not changed the pricing for its product. However, the company does plan to change its product packaging in keeping with the new commercial. The company’s managing director, Hiren Patel, did not comment on the issue.

“The advertisement takes Nirma into a premium base, although the pricing is still for the masses. We wanted to create a top-of-the-mind recall for the brand which was waning of late,” said Manan Soni, director, Purnima Advertising. Purnima has been handling the creative and the media duties of the company for 30 years. The television commercial has been directed by Shantanu Bagchi of Illusion Films.