It’s all about loving your friends

In an ad for Cadbury Celebrations, Contract has cast Amitabh Bachchan with Sachin Khedekar and Zohra Sehgal in a story that revolves around two long-lost friends

Nostalgia has been a vital ingredient of all Cadbury Celebrations ads, and the latest one by Contract is no different.

Quite interestingly, the Cadbury Celebrations account started off as a packaging assignment for Contract. This finally led to the agency handling the advertising. Around two years ago, Gulzar penned the lyrics for the brand tune, ‘Rishte Pakne Do (Let Relationships Flourish)’, thereby creating an emotional premise for the brand to connect with its target group. Having veteran actor Amitabh Bachchan as Cadbury’s brand ambassador helped.

Till recently, Celebrations had relied on festivals such as Diwali and Rakhi to do the trick, advertising heavily at those times of the year. But this year, it launched the ‘Tohfa’ TVC, taking things beyond just festivals. “That apart, festivities can’t be ignored as it is prime consumption time,” says Manish Bhatt, executive creative director, Contract Advertising, who created the new ad jointly with his co-executive creative director, Raghu Bhat.

The agency is out with a commercial that funnels the ‘Rishtey’ premise down to a single ‘rishta’ or relationship – friendship. According to research by Cadbury and Contract, people tend to go out of their way to do special things for friends, which may not be so in the case of relatives. “Hence, we narrowed ‘Rishton ko Banaaye Khaas’, and coined ‘Dosti ko Banaaye Khaas’ instead,” says Raghu Bhat.

The ad opens on a shot of Amitabh Bachchan suddenly spotting a photograph of his long-lost friend in a newspaper. The headline tells him that his friend has been voted ‘Businessman of the Year’. Reminded of him, Bachchan picks up the phone to wish Happy Diwali to his old pal, whom he used to lovingly call ‘Lalten’. His friend’s granddaughter picks up the phone, and ends up slamming it down when Bachchan asks for Lalten, as she obviously doesn’t get the connection.

Bachchan’s mother (played by Zohra Sehgal) then advises him to go visit his friend, instead of an informal call to wish him Happy Diwali. Following her advice, Bachchan lands up at Lalten’s doorstep, only to be rudely turned away by the security guard, who refuses to acknowledge that Lalten lives there. But Bachchan’s friend (played by Sachin Khedekar) overhears the conversation and turns around to greet him with his own childhood name, ‘Qutub Minar’, obviously a jibe on Bachchan’s height. As the two hug each other, Bachchan presents Lalten with a Cadbury Celebrations pack, which he jokingly touts as the secret behind his height. A product shot follows, after which Lalten’s granddaughter asks Bachchan why he calls her grandfather Lalten. Bachchan quips that his friend used to wear red innerwear to school (‘Lal’ meaning Red) and his roll number was 10 (‘ten’). The three of them laugh, while the core thought is brought forth, ‘Dosti ko Banaaye Khaas (Makes Friendship Special)’.

Bhat and Bhatt found their inspiration for the ad from the mythical story about the friendship between Krishna and Sudama. “We just had to make that contemporary,” says Bhatt. It was also decided to cast Bachchan as the underdog because making him play the rich man would have been predictable. The nickname angle was added to leverage the nostalgia element further.

The ad was shot by Shoojit Sircar of Rising Sun Films.