The recipe is simple and the ingredients easily available: take the religious following enjoyed by these nouveau-riche celebrity chefs, add in a fun flavor of a travel/road show, sprinkle with the necessary patriotic under-notes and you have yourself a delicious serving of a branded show. Here’s what makes it tick: Excellent entertainment appeal, actually useful content, and best of all, natural and effortless brand integration.

We are, of course, talking about National Ka Pakistan. In its second season now, NKP is National’s attempt at making the most of the branded content game and it is working.

With other recent attempts by major brands to integrate their brand with entertainment content – read: Olper’s Tanhaiyan and Coke Kahani – the brand is more often than not just restricted to the title without much said about it in the actual show. With National Ka Pakistan however, the focus is equally divided between the celebrity chef, the travelogue theme, and the National brand.

Not to Forget: The Stunning Creative!

The standards at which the show has been produced leaves little to be desired.  The promos, visuals and branding – done by smaller creative houses Shoot at Sight and Serial Color – are top notch and bring forward the theme and feel of the show brilliantly. The warm and sunny tones help establish the show’s friendly vibe and present Pakistan in a quasi-retro mode that you can only love.

National Ka Pakistan is a glimpse into how brands can tune into the consumers’ interest stream and produce communication that doesn’t make you reach for the remote automatically.