Tata Ace shows the path to progress

This is a truck ad, but with a typical ‘happy family’ portrayal. A young man sees his son off to school in his father’s Tata Ace mini truck and then carries on to his work. A montage of images shows the young man driving to different places in his Tata Ace and doing well in life. His son, too, starts going to a better school.

It is the positioning of a truck as a car that is intriguing. UT Ramprasad, head, marketing communications, CBBO, Tata Motors, explains the concept. The Tata Ace was launched in 2005 as a mini truck. The mini truck was below the one tonne category, which earlier had only three wheelers. The company launched the mini truck strategically to create a new segment because it realised that the three wheeler segment was booming. And its trump card? The price was almost that of a three wheeler.

Initially, the mini truck was positioned as a small goods carrier with the capacity to carry large loads – therefore, the use of ‘chota haathi’ as a metaphor in the communication. After two years and with more than two lakh vehicles sold, the company has decided to get a fresh angle to the communication.

According to Ramprasad, “The first commercial featured the product promise that here was the goodness of a Tata truck in a small size. We had to reinforce the Tata Ace’s reliability and sturdiness. And the metaphor was the ‘chota haathi’. The big ‘haathi’ is the Tata truck and the ‘chota haathi’ is the Ace. Once we had established the product, we needed to move on to an emotional payoff, which is why we have this concept of ‘life ban jayegi’. We need to exhort the unemployed youth and people to enter the commercial vehicle business and do well in life.”

The creative was made by Rediffusion DY&R. The creative director was Rahul Jauhari and the copywriter, OR Radhakrishnan. The film was created by Adfilmwallahs and directed by Shiven Surendranath.