Canva India's latest campaign brings historical icons to life, tackling modern-day challenges with Canva

With 'Hysterical Historical Café,' Canva reinforces its commitment to localising the platform in India through new ad-films.

Canva, an all-in-one visual communication platform with more than 190 million monthly active users globally, launches a set of 12 short ad-films as part of its Dil Se, Design Tak campaign in India. Hysterical Historical Café, a unique concept, gains widespread attention and acclaim across the digital realm, transporting Indian audiences to a whimsical world. A setting in which historical figures grapple with modern-day challenges, all while showcasing the limitless possibilities of Canva. The ad-films provide an innovative take on the brand’s user-friendly tools and everyday use cases in a quirky and fun way.

Set in an offbeat café where different eras and civilisations converge, the Hysterical Historical Café features interactions between notable characters from varying historical timelines. From Christopher Columbus hurriedly editing photos using Magic Eraser, the Wright Brothers improvising a presentation using Magic Design, to a knight bringing his ‘metalhead’ business idea to life with Magic Media; each ad-film highlights Canva’s innovative tools, demonstrating how they can be leveraged to achieve creative excellence. The humorous take on these iconic personalities navigating everyday situations creates a lighthearted and relatable narrative.

The campaign, conceptualised in collaboration with OML Entertainment, playfully showcases how anyone, regardless of their background or expertise in design, can create stunning visual content on Canva. From individuals, solopreneurs, content creators to small business owners and large enterprises, Canva is positioned as the go-to platform to bring their creative ideas to life with ease, while collaborating seamlessly. The campaign employs a multi-channel approach including TV to engage a diverse audience comprising consumers, professionals, enterprises, students, and creators.

“We’re thrilled to introduce the ‘Hysterical Historical Café’, a set of quick-witted ad-films that perfectly encapsulate Canva’s commitment to simplifying visual communication and making it more accessible,” said Chandrika Deb, growth and marketing lead for Canva India. “By blending humor with practicality, our goal is to highlight Canva’s many use-cases as a versatile visual communications platform empowering everyone from individuals to small and large enterprises in India to unleash their creativity. As a part of our ‘Dil Se, Design Tak’ campaign, we aim to connect with over 100 million active internet users and build deeper resonance for Canva in the Indian market.”

“Working on Canva has been a wild creative ride for all of us at Only Much Louder. Our unique ‘Brands As Creators’ framework is all about turning brands into storytellers that can truly entertain in order to connect with audiences. With a sharp comedy writer like Manaswi Mohata on board, we knew we could push the envelope. When we set out to show how Canva makes design accessible to everyone, we figured, why limit "everyone" to just us everyday humans? Why not dinosaurs, mammoths, queens, Nobel Prize winners, and even our prehistoric ancestors? The fun was in exaggerating not just with words, but with over-the-top setups. Honestly, we couldn’t have pulled it off without the trust and conviction of our incredible partners at Canva who didn’t just tolerate our craziness, but encouraged us to go even wilder!" said Manav Parekh, senior vice president and executive creative director, Only Much Louder.

Launched recently, Canva’s latest brand campaign, Dil Se, Design Tak, highlights the power of using Canva to transform ideas into reality; encouraging individuals from small to large enterprises to express their creativity at work. India has quickly emerged as Canva's fifth largest market, experiencing remarkable growth in 2023.