Aditya Chatterjee
Advertising

Philips brings a wider smile for JWT

JWT's commercial for Philips TV is the first Indian commercial to be featured in the prestigious shots show reel

Blue sky. Golden meadows. A pretty couple smiling coyly at each other. They race through the grassy patches for that climactic embrace. They run….and they run some more...but never the twain do meet. The last shot shows them giving up in despair, unable to negotiate the ever-lengthening distance between them. The MVO says: "The really, really wide screen TV from Philips.” A humorous twist to a classic Bollywood sequence.

Conceived in little over a fortnight's time, this commercial for the Philips widescreen television, created by JWT, is making news. Not only because of its simple and effective execution, but also because it became the first Indian commercial to be featured in the prestigious shots show reel.

'shots', is a 13-year-old directory of global advertising. It constantly monitors commercials from around the world to select the ones that stand out. Every two months, it features these commercials on DVD, VHS and a magazine and is something of a Bible for the advertising industry. Annually, it features the best of the lot in what is known as the shots Grand Prix.

"The gold standard for movie viewing worldwide is in the 70mm format,” says Suranjan Das, vice president, client services director, JWT, Mumbai. "The idea was to recreate the magic of the big screen in a typical 'filmi' sequence.”

The television, which is from the Pixel Plus range, offers a 'wider perspective.' In other words, where ordinary televisions literally cut corners to give you a truncated picture, this one does not compromise. "It is like watching cinemascope without the black band on the top and bottom, with no pictorial distortion or cutting off,” explains Das.

While many televisions are now using this format, Philips is the first one to talk about it and hopes to capitalise on this move.

The company brief to the agency was this: Dramatise the wide screen. JWT group creative director D Ramakrishna and his team came up with the idea of the film that works within the personality of the brand and takes it forward.

"Philips has been around for so long, people tend to forget that it is actually an MNC. And with the younger and aggressive Koreans coming into the fray, the brand needed a more youthful and entertaining image," adds Ramakrishna.

Consumer insight revealed that Indians love infotainment. That, with the proposition of simplicity that the brand is striving to be identified with, helped give shape to the communication. "The client has shown great faith in us by giving us complete freedom as far as this communication is concerned," he acknowledges.

Shot on a modest budget, the film's location too has become something of a talking point. "Contrary to the impression it gives, the film has actually been shot near Khandala," reveals Ramakrishna. The film has been produced by Virtual Reality and directed by Pervez Ahmed, head of film department, JWT, Mumbai. This is his third film for the brand. The creative team of Milind Nabar and Bhaskar Mani was behind the commercial, which will witness a big burst across all satellite channels soon.

The winning commercial carries on with the humorous touch that all Philips consumer electronic communications are now being associated with. "Humour has worked so far with almost all the products", says Das. "Whether it is the DVD 'Ramu kaka - roti' commercial or the 'Bada TV' one, it has helped the brand to dominate the market."

In fact, Philips enjoys a 50 per cent share of the DVD market and has helped to push the category up by 1000 per cent. But will the winning commercial be able to do an encore for the television now? The answer, after the interval.

© 2004 agencyfaqs!

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