Both Prahlad Kakkar and his ads are always in the news. This time, Kakkar is making waves with his new Rediff ad. In an exclusive interview with Sweta Rajpal, he talks about why.



Q: How did you decide on the script of the ad?



A: Being a tech-unsavvy person, I admit it was hard for me to direct an ad for a portal. So I simply asked my colleagues to try out the product. And most of them said one thing - that Rediffmail was 3-4 times faster that their present e-mail. And when I asked them what they disliked about their present mail, all of them pointed out the difficulty in downloading (or uploading, whatever you call it!). So the script was written.



Q: Did the client like your idea?

A: Initially, the client was sceptical. They wanted me to talk about several attributes of their e-mail service in the ad. After all, on TV you have only a few seconds and you want to convey so much. But then after a bit of convincing, they realised that I was making sense.



Q: What was the most difficult part?

A: We had a freaky time choosing the characters. We wanted our characters to be crazy-just like the Net savvy audience! And I feel we managed to get the craziest ones!



Q: Why did you shoot the ad in a cybercafe?

A: Because the cybercafe culture is a real new trend. And it instantly connects with the Net-savvy audience we were addressing. But I insisted that our set should show a fancy, modern, 'wannabe' cybercafe, not like the shoddy and shady cybercafes that are owned by halwais and paanwalas in Mumbai.



Q: Why you think the ad has worked?



A: An ad can never work by itself. The product has to live up to the promises made by the ad. If the product isn't good enough, an over-promising ad can in fact damage its brand image. I feel the ad worked because of two reasons. One, because the irreverence and humour in the ad instantly clicked with the audience. And two, the product lived up to the promises!