You never know when you might need your favourite sauce

The small-town kid moving and adjusting to the big city is a trope Ad Nut has seen many-a-times in popular culture. And it works for a reason. You root for the underdog, you want them to materialise their big-city dreams, and it might make you believe that you can perhaps make it too.

A new set of spots by Northeastern Thai sauce brand, Kunnid, plays into these universal themes with amusement. The brand, already familiar to Northeasterners, intended to target those who had moved to Bangkok for work. The challenge for Kunnid, and partner agency GGWP Bangkok, was to immediately set itself apart from other Thai sauce brands, of which there are an abundance.

To do that, the agency leaned in on the stat from the Bank of Thailand that 2.7 million Northeastern Thais have relocated for employment, with 1.2 million residing in Bangkok. And while moving to Bangkok might seem like a dream for many, those who are unfamiliar with the brutalities of a big city often face challenges. Such as, for instance, getting lured by a salesperson on a dating app, or being ripped off by a taxi driver.

The spots show that familiar sauces, when carried around, can offer a ‘taste of home’ and immediate comfort. Given that there exists a network of aunties globally who might carry around Maggi chilli sauce or small vessels of tabasco in their purses—usually during travels to unfamiliar places—Ad Nut can attest to the universal insight that sauce-familiarity is indeed a thing. This aforementioned network of aunties might even pack familiar sauce brands in their children’s suitcases when they move away from home.

Ad Nut particularly enjoys Kunnid’s execution of sauce-familiarity, especially given the specificity of the situations the Northeastern protagonists find themselves in. The scene where a woman is given a lecture on how to access the 24th in a fancy buttonless lift is comedy excellence—and a reminder to Ad Nut that Ad Nut will always root for the small-town kid.

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