Few advertising lines in India have achieved the cultural longevity of “Washing powder Nirma… Hema, Rekha, Jaya aur Sushma.” First aired in the late 1970s, the jingle did far more than promote a detergent—it became a part of India’s collective memory. It helped a homegrown challenger brand take on multinational giants and earned Nirma a permanent place in Indian households.
But iconic assets can become double-edged swords. By the mid-2010s, the same jingle that once fuelled Nirma’s meteoric rise had begun to restrict its creative possibilities. Every new execution leaned on the same familiar structure, creating recall but also repetition. The brand faced a crucial question: how do you evolve without erasing the past?
When Nostalgia Starts Limiting Growth
For decades, Nirma’s advertising grammar remained unchanged. The jingle demanded a specific storytelling format—often centred around four women solving a shared problem. While this consistency ensured instant recognition, it also led to creative fatigue.
According to Anand Karir, founder and chief creative of Boing Brandvertising, there was a growing sense of sameness. The challenge wasn’t just aesthetic; it was strategic. India had changed, consumption patterns had shifted, and newer audiences needed different cues.
Letting Go of Yellow to Move Forward
When Boing Brandvertising began working with Nirma in 2014, the agency made a bold recommendation: stop advertising Nirma Yellow, the brand’s flagship product.
At first glance, it seemed counterintuitive. Yellow had massive brand equity. But that was precisely the point—it no longer needed constant advertising support. Instead, the agency suggested shifting focus to Nirma Advance, a slightly premium offering positioned as a stronger stain-fighter.
This move allowed the brand to experiment without the weight of nostalgia. Nirma Advance ran for years without the iconic jingle, supported by non-celebrity campaigns and later by high-profile ambassadors like Hrithik Roshan and Akshay Kumar. Throughout, one behavioural cue remained consistent: whoever dirtied the clothes washed them. The labour wasn’t invisibilised—it stayed on screen.
Bringing the Jingle Back Like a Hero
By the early 2020s, the conversation shifted again. The jingle was gone, but its memory remained powerful. The question now wasn’t whether to bring it back, but how.
Simply replaying the old tune in 2025 risked sounding outdated. To connect with millennials and Gen Z, the jingle needed reinvention—not remixing, but expansion.
What followed was a two-year creative process beginning in 2023. Multiple versions were produced and discarded. The aim was clear: if the jingle returned, it had to feel earned, contemporary, and relevant. And importantly, it would return for Nirma Advance, not Yellow.
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Tujhsa Hi Nirma Hai – A Jingle That Evolves
The final film retains familiar strains from the original tune but introduces a new hook line—“Tujhsa hi Nirma hai.”
Singer Vaishali Samant carries the recognisable female portions, triggering instant recall. Daler Mehndi enters with new lyrics, adding weight, energy and a sense of scale. The choice was deliberate. His rooted, high-impact voice makes the jingle feel expanded rather than remixed.
Notably, the line “Washing powder Nirma” is absent from the female vocals. This subtle shift firmly anchors the jingle to Nirma Advance, signalling evolution without disowning the past.
Selling to a Very Different India
Visually, the new campaign breaks away from Nirma’s traditional storytelling. Instead of a single shared problem, the film presents multiple vignettes of modern India—a record-breaking limbo skater, a cloud kitchen entrepreneur, and everyday individuals pursuing ambition in different forms.
The insight is simple yet powerful: India has decentralised. Careers are no longer linear, risks are normalised, and passion often outweighs security. The film doesn’t dramatise struggle; it normalises effort.
Inclusivity here feels organic rather than performative. The casting spans regions, professions and identities without drawing attention to itself—reflecting India as it is lived today.
Designed for Scale, Built for Memory
The campaign has been structured for multiple viewing contexts. Longer edits allow for narrative build-up, while television cuts introduce the familiar jingle upfront to capture attention. The moment Vaishali Samant’s voice enters, viewers are expected to hum along—memory doing its job.
The media rollout matches the ambition: over 100 television channels, nearly 2,000 cinema screens, OTT platforms and digital media. The campaign has been released in association with Poornima Advertising, the agency behind the original jingle—closing the loop between past and present.
Nostalgia, Carefully Guarded
For Nirma, nostalgia is both strength and risk. Lean into it too heavily, and the brand risks sounding dated. Ignore it, and it forfeits one of Indian advertising’s most powerful sonic assets.
Tujhsa hi Nirma hai attempts a careful balance. It respects memory without freezing in it. The jingle returns—but stretched, reworded and repositioned for a changed India.
Fifty years on, Nirma is betting that its most famous tune can still evolve with the country it grew up in.
