Making ‘waves’ wherever it goes

Picture this. You’re lazing around on a Sunday morning, catching up on some much-needed sleep under warm, fluffy covers, and a bucketful of ice-cold water hits you in the face. Well, that’s exactly the aftertaste of the recent Indica V2 Turbo ad, created by FCB-Ulka.

“And we intended it to be that way!” says MG Parameswaran, or Ambi, FCB-Ulka’s executive director. According to Ambi, a stereotypical car ad shows car shots from every angle or, at the most, a guy proudly holding the steering wheel or the car cruising down a scenic road. In short, all the things one can see from one’s window. “So, we made a conscious decision to not go down the clichéd road. Our aim was to bring out the power of the turbo-diesel engine in this car in a dramatic, untried manner.”

The film opens on the shot of a man cycling in picturesque surroundings, his fishing equipment stacked behind him on his cycle. Whistling away, he reaches a lake and sets up his high chair in the water. He sits on the chair, takes out an apple and a cup of coffee, casts his fishing rod and settles down with a book, waiting for the fish to bite. As he’s sitting there peacefully, absorbing his tranquil surroundings, a loud sound is heard and a moving object quickly flashes before him. Before he knows it, it gets all windy and a huge wave from the lake washes over him, drenching him.

Shocked, he peers to see what caused the havoc. Next is seen a shot of an Indica V2 Turbo, with the voiceover saying the tagline, ‘Diesel re-energised’. A classic parting shot shows the car driving past at top speed.

According to S Krishnan, head, car product group, Tata Motors, the ad aims at changing perceptions about diesel cars. According to research conducted by Tata Motors, users perceive diesel cars to be noisy, sluggish and less peppy as compared to their petrol counterparts. They believe diesel cars cannot match up to petrol cars when it comes to speed and power, despite diesel being cheaper and the cars running on it more fuel efficient.

“Keeping this in mind, we launched the Turbo variant for the Indica V2,” he says. “While an ordinary diesel engine gives a 62 horsepower output, the Indica V2 Turbo gives an output of 70 horsepower.” In addition, the car is not noisy and the high torque engine ensures that the car’s pick-up is not sluggish, even when it is being started up.

FCB-Ulka was assigned the job of highlighting the power of the Indica V2 Turbo, which has double the power of an ordinary diesel engine, which is why the tagline: ‘Diesel re-energised’.

Ambi and his team-mates, who had to portray this power dramatically, worked on one basic insight: When a car drives past you at high speed, it creates a wave, a disturbance of sorts. “With the wave evolved the idea of having a water wave wash over a guy who is otherwise doing some quiet activity,” says Ambi. And the fisherman, played by restaurateur Rahul Akerkar, has been shown to be an upper crust person, the kind of person who goes fishing as a hobby. It was also a conscious decision to show the car towards the end of the ad. But if you watch the ad carefully, you’ll notice it lurking in the background just before the wave arrives. Is there a chance of predictability here?

Not a chance, says Ambi. It was all a part of the layering which the ad needed. “The first time you see the ad, you are so clued in to the total ambience in which the guy is having a cool time that you miss the car. The entire scene is as much of a shock for the viewer as it is for the fisherman, and all he notices is something moving in the background.”

It’s only in the third or fourth viewing that you are likely to notice the car driving along the lake after the initial surprise element is over. On further viewing, you may even notice something as insignificant as the sun’s rays shining on the windshield. “Each layer is revealed to the viewer every time he watches the ad, which is how we wanted it to be,” says Ambi.

The TG for this communication is someone who is upgrading from a Maruti 800 or a Maruti Zen or even first-time car buyers. At present, 80 per cent of car buyers are petrol car users; the ad hopes to sway as many of them as possible to switch over to this turbo-diesel car.

The ad film, directed by Rajesh Saathi of Keroscene Films, was shot in Munnar, Kerala, although it looks like it has been shot in the English countryside. The music score is by Ram Sampat. The first part of the ad deliberately shows tranquility, with elements such as the high chair to evoke intrigue. An underwater set, too, was created, to take a shot of the man throwing the hook into the water. “This shows the serenity of the lake. When the contrast from serenity to destruction happens, you are taken aback,” Saathi says.

The wave was created with 650 litres of water thrown from an artificial ramp kept high above. “We had to show a tsunami of sorts, which not only takes our actor by surprise, but also the viewer, who, till then, didn’t know where the ad was going,” Saathi explains. The shoot, which took three days, took place early in the morning when the lake is at its calmest.

Tata Motors hopes to achieve a 20 per cent increase in sales of the Indica V2 Turbo over the next quarter.

© 2006 agencyfaqs!