SonyLIV’s TOI print ad for Rocket Boys time travels to November 1963

Imagine picking up the newspaper in the morning to get your daily dose of current affairs. But the front page, instead of carrying all the big news of the day, takes you back to November 22, 1963.

In a print ad for its latest web series Rocket Boys, OTT platform SonyLIV used a jacket ad on The Times of India’s front page. The ad features a landmark page, with an interesting visual, from the archives.

Directed by Nikhil Adavani, the OTT web show is a deep dive into history and brings to life the empirical journey of Homi Bhabha (Father of the Indian nuclear programme) and Vikram Sarabhai (Father of the Indian space programme.) With an ambition of sending a rocket into space some day, the web series shows a hopeful Sarabhai, who joins Bhabha's atomic research unit.

Creating eye-catching print ads can be challenging. However, the intricate detailing of Rocket Boys’ ad makes it interesting and persuades the reader to glance over it for a few minutes.

The ad takes the reader back to the year 1963 and attempts to evoke nostalgia by making them proud of these exemplary Indian scientists. The intricate details of the fonts used, brand ads and the cost of the newspaper during those times, make the print ad even more noteworthy. The ad appeared across all editions of The Times of India.

Commenting on the campaign, Aman Srivastava, Sr. VP- head of marketing, SonyLIV said, “I always believe in less-is-more; but then when you have such illustrious individuals about whom it can never be said enough, we had to make sure that we make it compelling enough for the reader to make that effort. The #RocketBoys made history while building our future; we took a piece of history to embellish our present.”