I’ve wanted to write about this for sometime now. Just when I was beginning to question the creativity of people in general and ad-film makes in particular, something absolutely brilliant caught my eye. It’s the new Airtel ad. In a world where every second ad on the TV makes you wonder about (a) the number of celebrities we have these days and (b) the extent of torture the human mind can successfully resist, Airtel comes out with inspiring stuff. I’ve been an airtel-ad fan ever since the AR Rahman ad came out (minus most of the shahrukh ads). But this one makes the others seem like some miniscule wannabe air-time hostages.

It’s all of 60 seconds. It’s in black and white. Not a word is spoken in the ad. No, it’s not a silent ad; there is faint instrumental music playing in the background. It still follows the “Express Yourself” theme that its predecessors successfully upheld. But once you watch it, you know it’s special. The fact that I’ve seen the ad just once and remember it as clearly as anyone speaks volumes. So here’s what it is like:

It begins with the Satyagraha Movement march of Mahatma Gandhi. The caption at the bottom of the screen reads “Two words can bring down a regime”. Next it’s Martin Luther King delivering his famous ‘I have a dream’ speech, and the caption reads “One dream can change the world”. Then it moves on to umpire David Sheppard giving someone out, and the very next frame shows a dejected Sachin Tendulkar walking back to the pavilion. This time, the caption reads “One raised finger can break a billion hearts”. It’s followed by a snapshot of Winston Churchill showing his famous victory sign after the Allied forces defeated the Fascist ones. The caption reads, “and two can win a world war”. Then it moves on to the youth, with the next scene depicting some youngsters with a sledge-hammer, breaking down the Berlin Wall. The caption goes, “one act of defiance can spark a revolution”. Then it moves on to someone who looks like Mother Teresa, with an under privileged child and the caption goes something like “one touch can instill faith”. Then it’s Dalai Lama, which is accompanied by “a whisper can inspire hope”. Then it’s Lata Mangeshkar followed by Nusrat Fateh Ali Khan and the respective captions accompanying them read “some voices can move a nation” and “yet some others can dissolve boundaries” [1]. The concluding scene shows mostly young people holding candles to form a giant peace symbol accompanied by the caption, “one hundred thousand candles can end a war”. And then the famous Airtel theme plays and the screen goes black with the following message:

“That’s the power of Human Expressions. Express Yourself”

Simply brilliant [2]!

This advertisement defies the conventional norm of using star appeal and cheap, useless, mindless matter. It plays on human emotions. All the different scenes are those associated with emotions, and Airtel does a remarkable job of bringing all the events together in a coherent manner. I’ve tried looking for the ad on the web but to no avail. Also, throughout the ad, there is no mention of the services they provide, the entire focus is on what they believe in. For once, they got it right; it’s about the consumer, and not about the company. This, I believe, is what takes this ad, and in turn Airtel, a notch above the rest.

I don’t know how long it has been since the ad was first aired in India. But here, in Singapore, last week was the first time I saw it, during a Bangladesh vs. Australia one-day match. It comes as a breath of fresh air among the mostly good-for-nothing ads that hog precious air-time these days [3].

[1] I am not sure about the sequence in which the last few scenes I described appear. But I’m definite that I haven’t missed out on any scene.

[2] Except for four shots (David/Sachin, Winston Churchill, Martin Luther King and Lata Mangeshkar), the ad-film recreates moments that mostly changed the course of history. Scenes of public jubilation, the epic scale of the Satyagraha march, the concluding scene of hundreds of candles forming the peace sign – all of them were actually recreated. According to K S Chax, National Creative Director, Rediffusion, it was made sure that they had the highest degree of authenticity.

[3] I wonder if Arjun Singh is planning on introducing a 50% reservation for ads made by OBCs, or better still, for ads made on/about SC/STs and OBCs [Insert phrase: one that rhymes with ‘clucking bell’]. Wonder what its impact would be on the quality of the ads these days, or the lack of it rather. To start with, gifted ad-makers like Kartik Smetacek, who wrote this commercial, director Ravi Udyavar, who is the person behind the original Express Yourself commercials, and award winning photographer Prashant Godbole, who worked on this project, would cease to exist.