Experience Commerce Wins Big At The Afaqs! Marketer's Excellence Awards 2025

Experience Commerce has won big at the Afaqs! Marketer's Excellence Awards 2025.

The agency's Valentine's Day campaign for Parle Kismi, #SayItWithKismi - clinched Silver for Best Use of User-Generated Content and Bronze for Best Use of a Topical Event, celebrating its standout performance in a highly cluttered digital environment.

While Valentine's Day typically sees an overload of branded love stories, #SayItWithKismi broke through the noise by putting consumers at the heart of the narrative. Rooted in the brand's nostalgic tagline 'Har Kismi mein hai Kiss', the 15-day campaign encouraged people to express love in two engaging ways: a quirky tongue twister challenge, and a story-sharing contest where real-life memories were brought to life as AI-generated visuals. The result was a surge of organic participation—thousands of user stories brimming with affection, humour, and sentiment, turning the campaign into a digital celebration of authentic connection.

Mayank Shah, Vice President, Parle Products, said: "At Parle, we believe that the strongest consumer connections are built not just through products, but through shared stories and emotions. With #SayItWithKismi, we tapped into the nostalgia that defines Kismi, and gave it a fresh, participatory spin fit for today's social-first audience. The campaign’s success lies in its ability to spark genuine expression and turn consumers into storytellers. It’s exciting to see a legacy brand like Kismi evolve with cultural relevance and emotional authenticity, and this recognition from afaqs! reaffirms the power of co-creation in modern brand building."

"Kismi is a brand rooted in nostalgia, but to connect with today's audience, we needed to rethink how that emotion is expressed in the digital age," said Virindersingh Vilkhoo, Executive Creative Director, Experience Commerce. "Instead of polished ads, we designed playful, lo-fi format engaging content that gave people space to co-create—be it through tongue twisters, or real-life stories that we could convert to AI-generated love notes. The magic was in how seamlessly the audience took ownership of the campaign. That’s when you know the idea has truly landed, when it no longer feels like a campaign, but a conversation.

"Personally, I've always had a soft spot for Parle Kismi, so leading this campaign was extra special. The entire team was super excited to work on it, and these awards are a sweet bonus to the fun we had building it."

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