Vistara shows safety instructions through yoga poses in a riveting 'Incredible Indiaish' ad

Airline safety instruction videos never command the attention that a well-cut movie trailer or an ad from a sports or lifestyle brand does. However, Vistara, India's full-carrier service's new ad may have upended this viewership trend.

The four-minute video demonstrates safety instructions through yoga postures while the backdrops take us through some of India's stunning locations. There's the serene Pangong Lake in Ladakh, the idyllic Kannur Beach in Kerala, the extraordinary Dawki river in Meghalaya among others. Not only does the ad make a bland safety instruction video engaging but also makes us feel we're on some sort of an Incredible India journey.

Surjo Dutt, national creative director, FCB, the agency that made the ad told us, "The brief was to make a safety video in a manner that makes their consumers see, absorb, and engage."

For the NCD, a safety video can be done in many ways. He said that most are basic that only put information in them but the problem with such videos is that they become white noise and don't register with consumers. "You're taking three minutes and while it doesn't feel long, to hold a consumer's attention around a basic message like a safety video, it's a long time," stated Dutt.

He further revealed that it's a safety video for Indian consumers so wwe thought why don't we make it an Indian experience with all its beauty and magic? And is there anything more Indian than yoga? "... when you take yoga and India's geographical diversity, throw these elements into a pot, and craft a safety video, you end with a safety video that's not been done before."

We (afaqs!) were curious about the shoot locations because it's been a while since we saw an ad that covers the expanse of India. Turns out, the ad was shot long before the lockdown but it wasn't an easy job. Dutt revealed the locations weren't "shoot friendly spaces". And added, "... long recces were done to see where and how we will shoot it and a massive amount of shooting was done, what consumers see is the final edited version. It's a short crisp video but we've shot enough to make three feature films..."

"Truth to tell," emphasised Dutt when he explained it's not easy to hold our attention through an entire narrative... this is not like 16 different stories, there's only one story and we had to incorporate every little feature... How do you hold a person's attention, music, editing, colour palette, graphics... Everything had to fall in place.

This whole experience, as per Dutt, was experimentative and he was quick to credit Vistara for its effort in it... "... All this is a collaborative exercise and without a client's participation, a lot of these things can't happen, this is a great example..."