The campaignHaving stopped creating ads in 1999 soon after I co-founded Chlorophyll as a brand consultancy, I must admit, I have to visit the very distant past to share my favourite campaign with you: 20 years to be precise.
Take it as an interesting history lesson.
The year was 1991.
I was creative director of Clarion, an agency that died an untimely death.
The client and context
The context of the business was critical: the agency had just come out of one more of its periodic attempts for suicide, a by-product of three different stakeholders pulling the agency in three directions: the board; the union; the management.
We had to retain all business, and certainly marquee clients like Philips. Philips itself was under considerable pressure.
The market was shifting from two-in-ones to home audio systems, where Philips had just introduced its Powerhouse. But the two-in-one market had to be protected: not just in metro cities but also in smaller towns, where the two-in-ones were still quite popular.
The routes considered
Some questions were easier to answer than others.
What was the category benefit of a two-in-one?
Portability, of course.
How could we inject freshness and youth into a brand that also stood for humble middle-class tube lights and clunky ATM machines?
By tapping into the problems of youngsters, of course.
What were their problems, then?
Freedom and love, the usual suspects.
A few questions were not-so-easy to answer.
Obviously, we needed to blend in music, but what music?
Indian, Western? What would connect more?
What idea can connect all three: the portability, the problems of the youth, the music?
My art partner was Ashok Karnik: we tried an anthem as an idea, we tried demos as ideas, we tried graffiti as an idea.
The route chosen
Then popped this little story in my head: a small-town youngster leaving home to seek his fortunes in a big city with bright lights.
And who will be his only partner in his journey into the unknown?
His faithful two-in-one. And who will he meet in this cruel unforgiving city?
Someone seemingly more lost than him: a homeless waif, on a dark hopeless night.
But she has already discovered the freedom he is seeking so earnestly.
That's why, when he puts on the two-in-one for her, she launches