Himani Best Choice Oil's "Hit Bhi Hai, Fit Bhi Hai" — When Salman Khan Went Grocery Shopping for 10,000 Crores

There is a particular kind of confusion that every Indian who has ever stood in a supermarket oil aisle knows intimately. The shelves stretch in both directions, stacked floor to ceiling with bottles and pouches in every size, brand, and variety imaginable. Soyabean. Sunflower. Mustard. Palmolein. Refined. Cold pressed. Kachchi Ghani. Each one making its claim — of purity, of health, of taste, of value. And the shopper stands in the middle of it all, slightly overwhelmed, wondering which one to pick up.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wx-EkqfYhr0

It was exactly that moment — the universal, unresolved, quietly comic moment of oil aisle indecision — that Himani Best Choice Soyabean Oil chose to build its most celebrated campaign around. And it chose to put India's most recognisable film star right in the middle of that confusion, grooving to a jingle, flanked by his crew, before his wife walked in and made the decision simple.

The Brand That Had an Eastern Legacy and National Ambitions

Before understanding the campaign, you have to understand the brand. Himani Best Choice is a product of Emami Agrotech Limited — a company that is part of the Emami Group, one of India's most established FMCG conglomerates. Emami Agrotech had built its edible oil business into a company with a turnover of over Rs 18,000 crores, with Himani Best Choice enjoying a brand size of approximately Rs 10,000 crores. The portfolio of Himani Best Choice included Refined Soyabean Oil, Refined Palmolein Oil, Refined Sunflower Oil, and Kachchi Ghani Mustard Oil — a comprehensive range covering the major categories of Indian edible oil consumption.

But Himani Best Choice, despite its impressive numbers, had a geography problem. Its strength was concentrated predominantly in Eastern India — the markets where Emami as a group had built its foundations over decades. Beyond those eastern heartlands, the brand's presence thinned. And in a country where national visibility and national shelf presence feed each other in a virtuous cycle, being the leader of one region while being unknown in others is a strategic vulnerability that compounds over time.

Aditya Vardhan Agarwal, Director of Emami Group, was direct about the ambition: "After attaining the leadership position in the Eastern markets, we now have ambitious plans to take our edible oil brands on national platforms."

The instrument chosen for that national ambition was Salman Khan.

The Decision: Bhai Joins Big B

The announcement, made in January 2018, carried a specific cultural weight in Indian advertising. Amitabh Bachchan — Big B, the patriarch of Bollywood, the voice that India associates with gravitas and trust — was already endorsing Emami Healthy & Tasty, another brand within Emami Agrotech's edible oil portfolio. He was retained. And now, joining him in what the industry immediately recognised as a blockbuster brand association, was Salman Khan — Bhai, the mass entertainer whose fan following cuts across every demographic, every geography, and every income bracket in India.

As one industry report described it: Emami had scripted a blockbuster in India's brand association history. Two of Bollywood's biggest names, on the same company's edible oil brands, each carrying their own distinct but equally powerful audience equity.

Manish Goenka, Director of Emami Group, articulated the strategic logic: "We expect our new campaign with Salman Khan to have huge consumer connect as he promotes our brand in his inimitable style in real life situations. We are also confident that with both Salman Khan and Amitabh Bachchan on board, it will be equally exciting for our distributors and channel partners to make our presence felt in the national branded edible oil market."

That reference to distributors and channel partners was not incidental. When a brand with national ambitions signs a celebrity of Salman Khan's magnitude, the announcement works at multiple levels simultaneously. It signals to the trade — to the distributors, stockists, retailers, and shop owners who must stock and push the product — that this brand is serious. That it has made a serious investment. That it is coming. The trade confidence that a Salman Khan endorsement generates in the supply chain is as strategically valuable as the consumer awareness it generates on screen.

The Film: A Superstar, a Supermarket, and a Superb Jingle

The first TVC starring Salman Khan for Himani Best Choice was conceptualised, written, and directed by Nitesh Tiwari — the filmmaker who had directed Dangal, at that point the biggest Indian film in history by box office collection. Produced by Opticus Inc., with cinematography by Setu — the same cinematographer who had worked on both Kahani and Dangal — and food styling by Ivan Fernandez, the film assembled a production team whose individual credits were each significant in their own right.

The subsequent TVC — the one that entered the pop culture conversation most forcefully — took the same creative foundation and elevated it with an additional powerhouse: the jingle sung by Mika Singh, one of India's most prolific and recognisable voices in popular music.

The setting was a hypermart — a modern, sprawling supermarket of the kind that had become the new theatre of middle-class Indian shopping. Salman Khan arrived not as a polished brand representative but as a confused, relatable shopper — a man standing in the oil aisle, genuinely bewildered by the choices in front of him. This was deliberate creative positioning. Salman Khan's public image is built on many things — action, swagger, mass appeal, emotional generosity — but relatability is perhaps the most powerful of them. He is a superstar whom ordinary people feel they know. Putting him in a supermarket, scratching his head over cooking oil, was not undercutting his stardom. It was deploying his relatability.

And then, in typical Salman Khan fashion, he did not just stand there confused. He grooved. With his bunch of cronies — also a recognisably Salman trademark — he broke into a jingle: "Arrey ye loon re baba, ya woh loon baba…" — Should I take this, or should I take that. Mika Singh's voice gave the jingle the kind of earworm energy that stays in the head long after the screen goes dark.

The resolution came from the most grounding domestic authority in Indian life: his wife. She arrived, assessed the situation, and introduced him — and by extension the audience — to the best of quality, health, and taste offered by Himani Best Choice Soyabean Oil. And the confused Salman transformed into a happy, convinced consumer, breaking into the campaign's closing refrain: "Hit Bhi Hai, Fit Bhi Hai… babababa taste superr, taste superr."

As he sang, he tasted a parade of sumptuous, finger-licking Indian dishes — aloo gobi, puri, samosa, kachori, pyaaz paratha — each one a beloved staple from the everyday Indian kitchen, each one speaking directly to the brand's promise of purity, quality, and great taste at an affordable price.

Debasis Bhattacharyya, President of Marketing at Emami Agrotech, captured the chemistry of the production team: "Himani Best Choice has been sharing a long-standing relationship with Salman Khan since he came on board as the brand ambassador in 2017. Shooting with him is one-of-a-kind experience with the level of energy and fun that he infuses on the set. With Nitesh Tiwari on the director's chair, Mika Singh lending his voice to the jingle and above all Salman Khan appearing on screen with his evergreen magnetic persona — makes a magical combination that any brand can aspire for."

Nitesh Tiwari, for his part, described the tonal intention of the film with clarity: "Salman is an outstanding performer. Working with him on the set for the new TVC of Himani Best Choice has been a wonderful experience. Food is something which comforts our senses, makes us happy and with Himani Best Choice Refined Soyabean Oil it also keeps one healthy. In line with this thought, we have tried to keep the storyline of this new TVC light, musical and joyful — celebrating the happy mood that any good food creates instantly."

The new TVC aired across television and digital platforms, carrying the brand's national ambitions into living rooms from Bengal to Rajasthan, from Maharashtra to Punjab.

5 Lessons Every Brand Should Learn from Himani Best Choice Oil's Salman Khan Campaign

1. Expand Geography Through Stardom That Is Already National

Himani Best Choice had a genuine geography problem — dominant in the East, relatively unknown nationally. Salman Khan's fan base has no such geography problem. His audience is everywhere — in small towns and metros, in the North and South and West, among young men who watch his action films and older women who have followed his career for decades. By choosing a celebrity whose reach already mirrored the brand's aspirational geography, Himani Best Choice effectively borrowed a national distribution map for its awareness. The lesson: when a brand's product distribution is ahead of its brand awareness, the fastest bridge between them is a celebrity whose emotional geography matches where you want to go.

2. Match the Celebrity to the Tone the Brand Needs

Nitesh Tiwari said the creative team wanted the TVC to be light, musical, and joyful. And the celebrity they had was Salman Khan — a man whose screen presence is built not just on intensity but on an irresistible playfulness, a willingness to be silly and self-aware and charming in the same breath. His dance in the oil aisle, his jingle, his crew, his grin when he bites into a samosa — all of it was native to who he is. The tone and the talent were in perfect alignment. The lesson: the right celebrity for a campaign is not simply the most famous person available. It is the person whose natural public register matches the emotional tone the brand needs to strike.

3. The Jingle Is a Memory Device, Not Just a Marketing Tool

"Hit Bhi Hai, Fit Bhi Hai." The phrase carried in Mika Singh's voice, set to a tune designed for maximum earworm retention, is not just the campaign's tagline. It is a complete brand argument — the oil is a hit (tastes great, loved by the family) and it is fit (healthy, good for you). Two claims, six words, delivered in a rhythm that the audience would find themselves humming hours after the ad ended. The lesson: in the edible and FMCG categories, where advertising must penetrate millions of households across every literacy level and every media consumption habit, the jingle remains one of the most cost-effective memory tools available. A great jingle does not just catch the ear. It plants the brand.

4. The Supply Chain Is Also Your Audience

Manish Goenka's observation that the Salman Khan endorsement would be "equally exciting for distributors and channel partners" was not a throwaway line. It was a recognition that in India's FMCG distribution ecosystem — where a brand's success is as dependent on the enthusiasm of its trade network as on consumer demand — a high-profile celebrity signing sends a signal that money alone cannot send. It tells the trade: this brand is investing seriously. This brand will be visible. This brand will generate the pull that makes your stock move. The lesson: celebrity endorsements work at two levels simultaneously — consumer-facing and trade-facing. Brands that only think about one miss half the value.

5. Position the Celebrity as the Consumer, Not the Expert

Salman Khan does not appear in this campaign as a health expert explaining soyabean oil's nutritional benefits. He appears as a confused shopper who is helped by his wife to make the right choice. He is positioned as the consumer — large, famous, and charmingly clueless — not as an authority. This is a more honest and more effective use of celebrity. The audience knows Salman Khan is not an edible oil expert. By not pretending he is, the film earns more credibility than it would have with a posed, authoritative product endorsement. The lesson: the most believable celebrity endorsement is the one where the star is playing the customer, not the consultant. Relatable beats authoritative in the edible oil aisle.

The Takeaway

"Arrey ye loon re baba, ya woh loon baba."

It is the sound of every Indian who has ever stood in a supermarket oil aisle, a little lost, a little overwhelmed, and slightly embarrassed by how long they have been standing there. And it is the sound that Himani Best Choice chose to begin its campaign with — not with a promise of health or a certificate of quality, but with the shared, daily, entirely human moment of not knowing what to buy.

Then Mika Singh's voice came in. Then Salman Khan started dancing. Then his wife made the choice simple. And somewhere in India's homes, a brand that had been quietly dominant in the East took one more step toward being heard everywhere else.

Hit Bhi Hai. Fit Bhi Hai. And now, a little more known than before.