Three Amitabhs, One ₹5,000 Crore Dream: Can Bachchan Turn Sobisco Into a National Brand?

India has 28 states. Sobisco has hired three Amitabh Bachchans to conquer them. One Bachchan plays a husband for Sobisco Butter Biscuits. The second becomes a poet for Marie biscuits. The third appears as a grandfather for Cream Filled Cakes.

Had the company added two more products, Bollywood may have had to locate an entire Bachchan family.

It is funny. It is familiar. It is also a fairly serious declaration of intent from a Kolkata company that no longer wants to be introduced as a Kolkata company.

Sobisco says its products already travel through nearly 3,000 distributors and sub-distributors to 40 lakh retail outlets across 26 states. The company reportedly crossed ₹1,000 crore in revenue in 2023 and now wants to reach ₹5,000 crore in turnover over the next five years.

The biscuits have travelled. The brand is now trying to catch up.

The Regional Brand’s National Passport

India’s regional companies have built some of its most formidable consumer businesses. They understand local tastes, price points, shopkeepers and supply chains. They often know the difference between two neighbouring markets better than a multinational knows the country.

Then success creates a peculiar problem. The company becomes large, but its reputation remains trapped inside its original postal code. A brand can sell in Bihar, Maharashtra and Assam and still be described as “a Kolkata company”. It can reach millions of shops and remain absent from millions of minds. Trucks cross state borders more easily than brand perceptions do.

This is where the national celebrity enters. Amitabh Bachchan has effectively become advertising’s all-India passport office. His presence announces that the company standing beside him is ready to leave its regional waiting room. Bachchan does not have to explain Kolkata to Mumbai, or Mumbai to Lucknow. He belongs everywhere television has reached. Sobisco has, therefore, made an interesting calculation. Instead of slowly introducing itself market by market, it has placed one of India’s most recognised faces at the immigration counter three times.

Bikaji Took the Bachchan Express

Bikaji Foods made a similar journey.

The Bikaner-born snacks company appointed Bachchan as its brand ambassador in 2019 as it sought recognition beyond its traditional Hindi-speaking strongholds. “Amitji Loves Bikaji” gave a regional name a national sound almost instantly. Its marketing leadership later described Bachchan as a valuable investment.

But Bikaji did not arrive empty-handed. It brought Bikaner with it. Bhujia and namkeen supplied the company with a culinary address. Its regional origin added authenticity to the proposition. Bachchan helped introduce Bikaji nationally, but Bikaner gave consumers a reason to believe that Bikaji knew its snacks.

That is the distinction Sobisco must confront. What part of Kolkata travels with Sobisco? Is it a recipe, a taste, a manufacturing tradition, a cultural personality or simply the address printed behind the packet? A regional origin becomes valuable nationally when it functions like provenance. Darjeeling strengthens tea. Mysuru enriches sandalwood. Bikaner authenticates bhujia. Ratnagiri elevates mangoes. “Regional”, in these cases, is not a limitation. It is an ingredient. Sobisco’s campaign currently asks Bachchan to nationalise the company. A more ambitious campaign would ask him to make its origin desirable.

Ghadi Chose the Long Road

Ghadi Detergent took a markedly different route out of Kanpur.

It did not arrive nationally on the shoulders of a film star. It travelled through price, distribution, retailer relationships and an enduring proposition: “Pehle istemaal karein, phir vishwas karein.” The line performed several jobs at once. It challenged established brands, invited trial and turned the product itself into evidence. Ghadi expanded methodically, building density in markets before marching into new ones. It eventually grew into one of India’s largest detergent brands and challenged much older national competitors.

Ghadi’s passport was stamped by the consumer: Use it first. Decide later. The company made its Kanpur origins largely irrelevant without pretending to have fallen from the national sky. It became national through repetition, availability and value.

Balaji Wafers offers another model. The Rajkot-based company built a fortress across western India through local taste, competitive prices, retailer economics and manufacturing scale. It reportedly spends a considerably smaller share of revenue on advertising than several large packaged-snack competitors, yet has become one of India’s biggest players in the category. Balaji did not hurry to look national. It became too large to be dismissed as regional.

Sobisco, meanwhile, is choosing a faster and more glamorous road. There is nothing inherently wrong with that. Advertising exists partly to shorten journeys. The question is what waits at the destination once Bachchan has delivered the attention.

Should Regional Brands Escape Their Regions?

Marketing professor Ashita Aggarwal’s lens gives the campaign its more interesting tension: regional brands frequently treat their birthplace as baggage just when consumers are beginning to value authenticity, provenance and local character.

The instinct to appear national can flatten a brand.

Logos become sleeker. Packaging becomes more generic. Hindi or English replaces the local tongue. A national celebrity replaces the regional storyteller. The company gains geographical acceptability but risks losing the accent that made it recognisable.

Mysore Sandal Soap encountered the political version of this problem when it chose Tamannaah Bhatia to broaden its national and international appeal. The appointment reportedly drew criticism over the selection of a non-Kannadiga celebrity for a brand tied closely to Karnataka’s identity.

The controversy revealed a knot every ambitious regional brand eventually meets. Who owns its identity: the company, its home market or the larger audience it wants to acquire? A brand cannot remain preserved inside regional nostalgia forever. Growth demands new markets, new consumers and occasionally a new language. But national expansion need not require cultural witness protection.

Bikaji carried Bikaner forward. Mysore Sandal’s name carries Mysuru wherever the soap travels. Ghadi carried its consumer proposition. Balaji carried price and local taste. Sobisco needs to decide what it will carry from Kolkata.

Three Bachchans, But Which Sobisco?

Sobisco’s ambition deserves attention. Crossing ₹1,000 crore in revenue and constructing a network across 26 states is not a regional hobby. It is a substantial consumer business preparing for a much larger contest.

Bachchan gives that ambition scale on screen. The three roles also allow Sobisco to spread itself across relationships and generations. Husband. Poet. Grandfather. Butter biscuits. Marie. Cakes. The company is signalling that it wants to enter the entire household rather than occupy one corner of the snack cupboard.

But ₹5,000 crore will require more than entering households as a broad assortment of products. Sobisco must establish what kind of company has entered. Is it Kolkata’s biscuit challenger? Is it the value warrior taking on the national giants? Is it a bakery specialist? Is it the brand that understands how India eats between meals?

A company can manufacture dozens of products. A consumer’s memory is rarely as generous. That is where the next phase of Sobisco’s advertising must work harder. Bachchan can conduct the introduction. He cannot write the company’s entire national biography.

Perhaps the smartest move would be to place Kolkata at the centre of that biography. Turn the city’s wit, appetite, nostalgia and argumentative personality into advertising material. Let Sobisco arrive nationally with an accent instead of polishing it away. India does not need another brand pretending to come from everywhere. It may respond more warmly to one proud of coming from somewhere. Sobisco already has distribution across 26 states. It has hired three Amitabh Bachchans to distribute itself across 26 states of mind.