When Boing! sent 'achaar' to space...

A look at Boing!'s crazy new ad for Finolex fans that introduced netizens to Babloo Astronaut and a flying Ramu Kaka.

Finolex, a wire and cable manufacturing company, recently launched its new TVC to promote its fans. The brand, in its new ad, has taken the humour route, albeit with some exaggeration.

The ad film produced by Whitescript Films, has been conceptualised by a Mumbai-based ad agency called Boing!, and directed by Anand Karir, creative mentor for Boing! and Focus for this project. Focus is the media agency for the brand.

The campaign is currently being run on both television and the digital platform. The brand will be doing an Out-of-Home (OOH) campaign as well in the near future.

Finolex Fans is spending Rs 10 crore in Phase 1 of the campaign. The target audience for this campaign is the age group 25-45 years, male and female, primarily new home buyers, home renovators, and anyone and everyone who wants to buy a new fan.

The ad begins with a shot of an astronaut in his spaceship waiting for his mother's handmade 'paratha'. As he opens the pickle jar, he is disappointed to see it empty and says 'Achaar Khatam'! Suddenly, these two words of distress flash on the screen at the government's headquarters and it turns into a national issue -- an astronaut stranded in space without proper food in the absence of pickle.

The mother, who is sitting at home suddenly comes up with a wacky idea and looks at her servant 'Ramu Kaka'. In the next scene, the astronaut hears someone knocking on the door of his spaceship, and to his surprise, it is none other than Ramu Kaka who has come all the way from earth to deliver him the pickle. And, how does the servant, without boarding a spaceship reach him? He does so thanks to the power of five Finolex Fans.

Talking about the brief given by Finolex, Sunila Karir, founder and creative partner, Boing!, says, "Finolex is entering the fans category, which is one of the oldest and cluttered categories in advertising, with some really big and experienced players in it. ​Also, as desired by the consumer, 'Hawa (wind)' is what our products will deliver and deliver it quite well. Hence, our brief was not only to create an ad that announces the launch of Finolex fans in the category, but do so by saying what every other player has been saying for years, but in a fresh and memorable way."

In the recent past, the TVCs in the fan category have been led by Havells which focussed on India's problems like reservation, corruption and inequality with the tagline 'Hawa Badlegi'. Later, Anchor Fans by Panasonic launched its TVC which took a dig at Havells with the tagline 'Soch Badlo, Hawa Toh Badalti Rahegi'. So, what was the idea behind making this ad for Finolex?

Karir says, "We knew at the outset that if we have to enter this category with a bang, nothing direct or emotional will work in our favour. The competition has already done enough of that. We have to think lateral. Our idea has to be out of this world (pun intended). It has to be wacky. We began to think of what could be the wackiest things one can do with the power of a fan?"

According to Karir, the thinking started backwards. "So, when we started thinking of creative ideas on 'more air', for weeks everything we discussed seemed done before until in a creative discussion, one of our writers came up with a germ of an idea -- 'imagine some crisis is happening in space and someone goes there to help with the power of Finolex Fans being run simultaneously by an entire village'."

We asked our brand expert if this ad stands out in the fan category and can grab eyeballs.

Harish Bijoor, brand expert and founder, Harish Bijoor Consults Inc, says, "The Finolex Fan ad does stand out. I think it represents the genre of ridicule. It is fun, ridiculous, tells a story, captures societal nuances and angst very well, and leaves a funny feel at the end of it all. It is long, circuitous, and fits very well into the digital-story-telling format, where the luxury of time exists."

He further adds, "I think the time of this genre of advertising is here. Brands have used every brand-positive to sell themselves and their products. It is now time to use the ridiculous, but funny argument. Brands need eyeballs. Get those eyeballs at any cost. This ad does just that."