Abid Hussain Barlaskar
Digital

This David Attenborough-esque video is not a NatGeo clip but a Skoda ad

The latest spot from the auto brand looks and sounds like an extract from a wildlife documentary and it's built around 'Peace of Mind'.

The latest ad from auto brand Skoda features snow monkeys relaxing in hot springs and is something straight out of BBC's 'Life' documentaries. The first ad from Skoda's 'Peace of Mind' series highlights the brand's 'Shield Plus' package, an initiative that offers a 6-year warranty, 6-year roadside assistance and 4-year maintenance, in one go.

This David Attenborough-esque video is not a NatGeo clip but a Skoda ad

Peace of Mind comes naturally with SKODA

The ad features snow monkeys from Japan peacefully bathing in a hot water spring followed by visuals of a driver relaxing in a Skoda SUV. But that's just the visual element of the ad. What's really enticing is the husky voice-over. The voice is reminiscent of Sir David Frederick Attenborough's, an English broadcaster and natural historian best known for his work with the BBC Natural History unit. Attenborough has also narrated for 'Our Planet', a British nature documentary available on Netflix.

The film has been conceptualised by Publicis Ambience, produced by Prodigious (Publicis production house) and was directed by Lloyd Baptista.

Ramakrishnan Hariharan, head of creative at Publicis Ambience, confirms our notion and mentions that it was a conscious decision to give the ad an Attenborough-esque touch. "Such visuals are accustomed to a certain type of voice. So, we didn't want to use a different voice because that would defeat the purpose. Mimicry wasn't the intention. With such a combination, viewers are immediately reminded of such documentaries. The footage was bought and we later worked on it. We had various footage and we had to pick the right one to make it look seamless in terms of the background and there was a lot of CGI work involved," Hariharan says.

Now, here's an original Attenborough clip about snow monkeys -

This David Attenborough-esque video is not a NatGeo clip but a Skoda ad

A snow monkey documentary with Sir David Attenborough's VO

Credits:

Agency: Publicis India

MD: Srija Chatterjee

CCO: Ajay Gahlaut

CSO: Neeraj Bassi

COO: Paritosh Srivastava

Head of Creative: Ramakrishnan Hariharan

ECD: Nishant Jethi

Creative Director: Neh Rathi, Avinash Jakhalekar

Creative Team: Sneha Agarwal, Ajay Jhadav, Rakesh Samal

Account Management: Nikhil Kumar, Punit Bhatt, Fouzia Bukhari, Sunaina Parmar

Account Planning: Disha Pinge, Kanupriya Mahajan

Films Head: Jignesh Maru

Production House: Prodigious

Director: Lloyd Baptista

Executive Producer [Head of Prodigious]: Varun Shah

Producer: Rudra Mawani

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