GoaFest, 2011 - My Tentative Pick of Possible Award-winning Ads...

GoaFest, 2011 - My Tentative Pick of Possible Award- winning Ads...

 Would you agree?

Coca-Cola Ad – Shadow

 I’d put my money where my heart is and that is on Coke’s Open Happiness Campaign by McCann Erickson Worldwide and its team of men, some of whom include:

Prasoon Joshi,  Tirtha Ghosh, and Ashish Chakravarty.

Shibani Kashyap is the voice behind the remix song “Aaj ki raat...”. The song was first heard in the movie Anamika (1972) starring Sanjeev Kumar and Jaya Bhaduri (Bachchan).

 Any ‘treatise’ of an ad would be incomplete without a mention of the production team, and in particular this ad, ably led by Dibakar Banerjee of Freshwater Films, for a superb orchestration of the concept. A brilliant effort by Dibakar and his team. 

The man behind the camera deserves a separate page by himself. Watch this space for more on this amazing talent and his production house.

That’s how perhaps I’d summarize the performance of the key players in the conceptualizing and execution of a brilliant idea.

A little history would not hurt:

 It is alleged that 300,000 consumers had downloaded and  previewed the campaign on digital media. The website also claims that at the time of publishing the details of the ad, there were nearly 90,000 referrals for the ad online. Amazing, isn’t it? Especially when the claim was made even before the ad was made public in the mass media. 

And now to juggle your memory. This is that ad that has Imran Khan as the protagonist who is in the process of shifting to a new house. As he lowers the last of the cartons and wipes the grime and sweat from his brow, he notices a shadow of a young woman working away on her laptop and with some brilliant play of light and shadow attempts to have a sip of her cola. And that forms the base of a possible romantic overture between the two. 

The ad ends with a lot unsaid, allowing us to surmise the possible outcome of the meeting of two perfect strangers over a shared bottle of a cola. That is the concurrent theme running across both the Coca-Cola ads I have discussed at length with you.

A bottle of Coke opens up possibilities to strike up a conversation even between strangers is what both the ads seem to be telling us, true to the tagline: Coke khule toh baat chale.

Not sure you have got the ad right? Then here it is just to juggle your memory:

And as a parting shot I have this to say:  A good ad always sticks in your memory, and if not, a little nudging brings it all back, as it did me.