Airtel

A single ad can change your destiny. Don’t take our word for it... ask Airtel!

While Reliance may be catching up in the race for number of subscribers, Airtel is clearly far ahead, so far as strong positioning and poignant advertising communication is concerned.

But then Airtel has a legacy of churning out rock-solid advertisements since the very beginning. And April 2006 saw the mother of them all making a debut on your telly tube: The blockbuster ad evoking strong emotions from momentous occasions! The visuals transcend from Mahatma Gandhi’s Quit India Movement to Winston Churchill showing the victory sign after the allied forces defeated the fascist one; from Sachin Tendulkar’s dismissal by umpire Shephard to Martin Luther King delivering his famous ‘I have a dream speech’, and so on... The typed graphics are equally moving – ‘two words can bring down a regime’, ‘two can win a world war’. The ad ends with ‘That’s the power of human expression – Express Yourself.’

“Airtel has long been a clear leader in the telecom business, and has behaved as a leader should,” beams K. S. Chakravarthy, National Creative Director of Rediffusion DY&R, who along with his team created the ad. The commercial evoked a million goosebumps, tugging at heartstrings with the overwhelming images of emotions it showcased. Dubbed the ‘Madras Mozart’, maestro A. R. Rahman composed the distinctive music for Airtel, which is by now a household jingle.

No file footage, mind you!

And if you thought that the creative brains relied only on file footage to produce this masterpiece, you’re dead wrong! “Except for four shots (Sachin, Churchill, Martin Luther King and Lata Mangeshkar), the film painstakingly recreates historic moments that changed the course of history,” says Chakravarthy. Visualise the recreated images of Gandhi’s Salt March, the tranquility of the monastery, the formation of the peace sign with numerous candles, and you realize the painstaking craftsmanship that has gone into this one.

The TVC is years of sweat and blood reaching fruition for Chakravarthy and his team, many of whom were also responsible for the original Express Yourself commercials from Airtel.

Chakravarthy elaborates on the tornado of tangles he had to face while shooting this ad: “The really difficult part was not the actual shoot, which in any case was spread over many days and locations, with stills being shot simultaneously. The tricky part was getting permissions and clear ances from the celebrities,” he explains. Airtel’s Express Yourself plank has really served it well in the past too, and this campaign has managed to elevate its positioning way above other competitors. More power to Mittal!

Next time, don’t even dare to ask someone: “Log Chlor-mint kyon khaate hain?”

Chlor-mint

“Log Chlor-mint kyon khaate hain?” is the innocuous query posed in general to the entire world and the results are earth-shattering, mildly speaking that is... That’s the concept behind the entire Chlor-mint series from McCann-Erickson. “You see, it is a continuing idea” remarks Prasoon Joshi, the creative m astermind behind the ads.

The latest commercial focuses on the same zany logic, wit h the victim this time being Ms. Pappi. The commercial begins with Miss Pappi who is preoccupied with her looks, engrossed in getting her make-up right and busy admiring her beauty in the mirror while her family calls for her repeatedly. Irritated, she proclaims that her posters will one day be put up in every household.

While preening to herself no end, Pappi is seen humming as she enters the lift where she finds a Chlor-mint wrapper and grumbles, “Log Chlor-mint kyon khaate hain?” It is mayhem unleashed next, as the doors of the elevator pound her into a poster when she tumbles out of the lift!

“We had to suspend the logic as to why someone is having Chlormint, and if you didn’t know the answer you would be punished for it! It is the absurd logic that worked and became the language and grammar of the brand,” offers Prasoon.

Interestingly, the commercial has a background ‘thumri’ score sung by acclaimed thumri singer Shubha Joshi, with hilarious lyrics, “Roop ki dhani hoon main, Prem kali bani hoon main.” Prasoon recalls the initial effect that the combination had on Shubha Joshi. “She went blank when I told her to sing this particular song and gave her the lyrics. She was very uncomfortable in the beginning and I had to convince her to sing it in her inimitable ‘thumri’ style!” he says.

Talking about the truly funny moments during the filming of the commercial, he chuckles, “When we were shooting, some relatives of the actors would come and ask us as to what we were doing? I said that the girl in the commercial would be turned into a poster inside the lift and they would be bewildered, having a ‘What do you mean?!’ look on their faces!”

Prasoon says that from the outset, the image he had in mind for Pappi was someone hopelessly in love with her own self and overstuffed to the core.

“The idea might surely sound absurd, but if we turn around, we witness bizarre incidents. If we see Hindi films, we show people dancing around trees as soon as they fall in love. Now, is there a logic to it?! But it has worked well for film-makers for years now,” he says, adding that products are bought solely on recall value and impulse.”

Yet another master commercial from Chlor-mint! With the incomparable Prasoon Joshi the brains behind it, this one’s turned out to be one of the most recalled ads of this year.