Why is it my best campaign
After almost 20 years of being in the industry, there are so many campaigns one has worked with that it becomes difficult to pick the best one. But there are always some campaigns or categories that become close to your heart for some reason or another.
Personally speaking, I enjoy working on the automotive category at large. One campaign that stands out, then, is Tata Safari Dicor’s Reclaim Your Life campaign. Sometimes, the right minds come together on a campaign — creative, servicing, planning — and magic happens. The client, of course, deserves credit for having faith in the team.
Brief to the agency
We were designing the communication for the launch of the Dicor, the new Tata Safari. The obvious brief from the client was — Dicor defines power. This take was essential because till then the perception was that the brand was somewhere considered underpowered.
Various routes considered
We accepted the brief and put together the campaign and presented it to Rajiv Dube, our client who was, at the time, head of passenger cars division, Tata Motors. While he was almost convinced by the campaign’s blueprint we had in mind, he suggested that we first experienced Dicor for ourselves. He encouraged us to testdrive the vehicle. On his part, he wanted us to understand the actual difference between the new Tata Safari and the old one.
It was only when we drove the vehicle that we realised its power was palpable. Consumers interpret power as pick-up (this car goes up to this speed in zero to X-seconds kind of a thing) or speed. When we sat behind the wheel, however, we felt there was much more to the vehicle. There was, in fact, a sense of the transference of the power to the driver.
We thought the campaign could be much bigger than that defined by the client’s brief. Plus, there was the imagery to consider. People buy cars because they buy into the imagery of the car or the philosophy of the car. The details come later, the imagery is what draws buyers to the showroom. Speaking about features can get limiting. Where do you really draw the line with feature-led campaigns? One can speak about ten features, another twenty.
The route chosen and why
We decided to speak to the “driver” directly and establish a philosophy around the car. The idea of power, we felt, could be about being in the seat of control.
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We started asking people if they were happy with their lives, especially those in the age group of 30–35 who had achieved and reached a certain position, both professionally and personally. This was the target audience that would even consider buying the vehicle.
In fact, I remember chatting with many of my friends. We spoke about what we wanted to be when we were younger, where we had eventually landed up, could we, if given a chance, go back to fulfilling our real dreams, our passion. In a bid to make this campaign a success, we started wondering just how we could provoke viewers. One obvious way of doing it would be to take a 4X4, get out of city, get out of the rat race, not let life pass you by but rather “reclaim your life”. That was how the idea finally took shape.
Outcome
For the campaign to rattle them (the client, and, eventually, the viewer) it had to be, well, disturbing. All the audio-visual elements had to work in unison to deliver the effect. The level of detailing in the film was extensive. For instance, there is a shot where a guy says, “I always felt like quitting on a Monday morning.” He could have just said I always felt like quitting work. But the mention of Monday morning strikes an instant chord with every office goer who thinks on a Monday morning, damn, the weekend is over.
Even the music had a haunting feel to it. We got Ram Sampath to improve a particular track from the movie Requiem for a Dream. Parts of our ad film was black- and-white with some hand-held camera shots to provide the necessary impact. The team, Abhinay, our film director, and editors shaped it well. Like, in the end, we wanted an action shot of the car. Abhinay came up with the jumpshot that has over the years become the trademark of the car.
Will it work today
The campaign is still ongoing. Not necessarily the same film, but its variants. I still believe that conveying the philosophy of the vehicle is more important than talking about the features. If I had to work on the campaign today, I will stick to the core concept but extend it to various platforms to connect with the users. The rules of engagement with the audience and the platforms available to do so are very different today. The campaign must be seen through this light.
Sagar Mahabaleshwarkar
Cheif Creative Officer, Bates