Parle-G is not a cookie. It is a biscuit.

I’m sitting here at my desk. The dream job: working at a high profile ad agency in a high profile city and what am I doing? I’m eating Parle-G biscuits dipped in Brooke Bond Taj Mahal chai (not chai tea people just chai. Thank you.) This is my little piece of home at work. This is my connection to home every day, day after day. Each crumb of my exquisite glucose biscuit brings back a wonderful memory. The Pune monsoons, the piping hot chai at the Pune University circle on the way to lazy drives to NDA, sunny early mornings at school and college. That was the life. What is it about Parle G I love so much? First of all can I just state up front that at 6 packs for a $1 it’s a pretty damn good deal! This my friends is THE biscuit of choice in India for the common and not-so-common man. The calorie count isn’t too bad either. I was forced to check this out when I found myself going through the entire pack in one sitting. This has become more the norm by the way but at 450 calories a pack its way less than your average treat at Starbucks-yes even the reduced fat blueberry coffee cake.
But my love is far more emotional than all that.
The feeling you get when you dip a Parle G biscuit into a steaming hot cup of good Indian chai (except when it melts into the chai-you have to get your timing right here.) Aaaaah. That’s when you know its going to be okay.
You know what’s really upsetting me though? There’s suddenly this new packaging-it’s a plastic wrapper-yikes! Whatever happened to that lovely waxy paper wrapper that was so inherent to the whole Parle G experience? They kept the same cute kid on the plastic wrapper but it just feels so wrong. The kid looks less cute on shiny plastic…matte was far more flattering on her, poor dear. They’ve even added some captions on the wrapper like ‘world’s largest selling biscuit’ and ‘Power supply’. Now listen. I work in advertising and I know I’m probably not the target audience here (you don’t think ‘Urban city chick with India withdrawal symptoms’ age 18-49 is a key target segment?) but I want to know who is indeed their target and if they’re really loving this new packaging. Does the fact that it’s the world’s largest selling biscuit even matter to them? To anyone?
I decided to do a search on Parle G and found a pretty decent brand website. The site tells us “Parle-G is consumed by people of all ages, from the rich to the poor, living in cities & in villages. While some have it for breakfast, for others it is a complete wholesome meal. For some it's the best accompaniment for chai, while for some it's a way of getting charged whenever they are low on energy. Because of this, Parle-G is the world's largest selling brand of biscuits.” Huh. So I guess I am in the target audience…the whole world is!
This biscuit has been around since 1939 and used to go by the name Parle Gluco. It got shortened. Kind of like P Diddy from Puff Daddy. Ok whatever. Bad analogy.
The old packaging is adorable and very Amul-like (another of India’s classic brands) with cows and a cow maid.
The website went on to explain the new packaging, big news that it is (not being sarcastic)
“Originally packed in the wax paper pack, today it is available in a contemporary, premium BOPP pack with attractive side fins. The new airtight pack helps to keep the biscuits fresh and tastier for a longer period.”
We don’t want premium BOPP pack - whatever that means. Give me my wax paper back dammit! Listen first of all-what the heck are “attractive side fins?” Are we talking about fish or biscuits here? Secondly, we don’t need the biscuits fresh and tastier for a longer period-we eat them in one sitting. Helloooooo. Two sittings at the most on good days. Am I alone here? Can we have some focus groups please?
I needed to get to the bottom of the new packaging…there had to be something more to it. Several searches later I started to discover the several ‘stomach-churning’ incidents that had occurred involving bugs and the like (sorry I refuse to go into detail—far too loyal) which I’m assuming prompted the move to plastic and therefore far more impenetrable wrapper.
Ok Ok I rest my case. Hygiene conquers all. At the end of the day I’d opt for my bug-free biscuit over a matte looking chubby brand icon kid any day
It’s just packaging after all.
All I’m trying to say here is that everything changes and there are such few things in life you can look at and say “you know that will never change”. Well my Parle G was one of those things. And it did change, at least on the outside. The inside is a different story. While the promise of flavored product extensions lurks near, I will make the most of this original wonder-biscuit.
(http://www.parleproducts.com/parle-g.html)