‘Never say die’, the Camlin way

There’s an enduring fascination with the cycle of life and death, and Lowe is capitalising on it. The agency, which rose to stardom with the ‘Reincarnation’ ad for Greenply Plywood, is back with a different rendition of the concept; this time, it’s experimenting with the ‘Resurrection’ theme for client Camlin.

The ad begins on a super against a black background, which reads, “In India, bangles, locket and a vermillion mark on the forehead are symbols of a married woman. Daily, the husband applies vermillion on the wife’s forehead as it is believed to be connected to his lifeline. When the husband dies, ‘rudalis’ (professional mourners) come and strip the woman off these symbols.”

The film opens on the shot of a hut inside a village, where a man lies on his death bed, while his family and community members surround him. The man gasps for air and, to his wife’s horror, his body goes still. The moment he is declared dead, a group of black garbed ‘rudalis’ enters the hut and descends upon the shocked wife. Wailing profusely, they grab her arms and remove all her bangles.

Next, a ‘rudali’ snatches away her locket, while another scrubs her forehead to remove the ‘bindi’ or vermillion mark. However, no amount of rubbing removes this mark to the shock of the ‘rudalis’. A flashback shot then shows how the husband applied the ‘bindi’ with the help of a red Camlin permanent marker, as opposed to the red vermillion powder that is used usually. A fitting end to the ad has the husband gasping for air again, and everyone realises he isn’t dead after all. His wife hugs him with relief, as the voiceover concludes, ‘Camlin Permanent Markers. Really Permanent.’

It’s interesting to note that even in today’s day and age, such rituals exist in the interiors of Rajasthan. “Once we decided not to do a typically boring product oriented ad, we started thinking of other ways in which a permanent marker could be used,” says Priti Nair Chakravarthy, executive creative director, Lowe. After tossing around ideas such as tattoos and permanent writing on rocks, the vermillion concept was finally selected as the most amusing and relevant one.

“When we started researching death rituals revolving around the vermillion mark, we found it quite weird that people are paid to perform these acts even today,” says Chakravarthy. However, the act has a logical reason, she finds. When her husband dies, a woman goes into a state of shock and is unable to express her sorrow. By stripping her of all the symbols of her marriage, she is persuaded into accepting the truth.

Through this ad, Lowe has done the double job of trying to get people to register Camlin as a brand in their minds and presenting the product benefit (permanency) in a memorable way. The TG mostly involves corporate professionals, courier and baggage guys and other people in the transport/service area. Households form the secondary TG.

A few press ads have also been released based on the same idea of permanency. One of them shows an old man with a typical mark on his head, which is generally applied on a child, thus implying that the man has borne the ‘permanency’ of the mark throughout his adult life. Another one has an old lady’s wrinkled arm still carrying the polio vaccine mark applied on infants at the time of vaccination.

The film was shot over two days by Abhinay Deo of Ramesh Deo Productions in Film City, Mumbai, with a budget of around Rs 50 lakh. A set was created to lend a rustic, Rajasthani village feel. “As 80 per cent of the film is supposed to have a morbid air to it, this was a difficult film to shoot,” Deo says.

Further, the twist in the end is supposed to make things suddenly humorous, which was an even bigger challenge. To make sure this transition happened smoothly, Deo introduced a Bollywood element. The flame of the oil lamp goes off when the husband is declared dead. “This made sure that people would consider it as unreal as a Bollywood film and get the humour element in it,” Deo explains. The flashback sequence was introduced later to explain the unusual use of the marker to apply a ‘bindi’.

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