'Dancing uncle' makes a comeback

When Sanjeev Shrivastava stepped onto the stage to shake a leg at a wedding, little did he know that he was taking one giant step towards becoming famous. Popularly known as the 'Dancing Uncle’, his moves left a lasting impact on audiences and advertisers alike. Though his five seconds of fame were back in 2018, Daboo uncle (as the new ad fondly refers to him as), has resurfaced.

In an ad for DSP Mutual Funds, we see Daboo uncle shaking a leg again, but this time, we get to zoom in and take a closer look at his life. We meet his family, his friends, and brother, who are all worried that he is acting out of character. Eventually, the audience comes to see that Daboo uncle starts dancing again when he figures out his finances with the help of DSP Mutual Funds' offering called DAAF.

Aditi Kothari Desai, director and head – sales and marketing, DSP Mutual Fund said, “Dynamic Asset Allocation Funds are a good way for young investors to start investing for the long term and can be an equally strong addition to portfolios of experienced investors. While they invest in both equity & debt, they also dynamically change the allocation between the two, to help people take advantage of changing market conditions. Our educational campaign over the next few weeks aims to talk to viewers about DAAFs in a really fun, youthful, unusual and modern way and we hope that our efforts would move the needle positively for this product category.”

Abhik Sanyal, Head - consumer marketing, DSP Mutual Fund said, “Our DAAF video attempts to blend a relatable YouTube personality- Dancing Uncle with a relevant investing proposition- DAAFs. The bizarre mockumentary format allowed us to play with characters and a ‘is-it-really-true’ underdog story, with Bhopal providing the right backdrop for the film to really come to life. Of course there are many more campaign elements that will all come together to present DAAFs in a really offbeat manner.”

DSP is not the first advertiser to use Daboo uncle to drive a point home. Google India recently uploaded a video of him dancing, and used it to highlight their 'search' feature, which (in this case) can help you find the right dance classes. The ads were part of a series of ads by Google called #ALittleHelpFrom. Here are the other ads in the series:

When pondered over, we realised that in an evolving digital landscape in India, this means that the very nature of viral content is changing. We spoke to Shradha Agarwal, the chief operation officer of Grapes Digital, a digital-first agency, to understand the internet consumer better. She points out that it’s possible that the company picked Daboo uncle because of the specific TG they're targeting — viewers above the age of 40. "The first thing that they want to do is drive awareness and relatability because he is easily recognisable with people," she mentioned.

"In this case, it was a real video that went viral. It wasn't something engineered by influencers," she pointed out, adding that he started his YouTube channel only after he went viral and was virtually unheard of, until then. Agarwal believes that this will have a good impact as consumer segments are highly fragmented and Daboo uncle is universally recognised in that sense.

"Virality is not that easy to achieve, but social media tends to have a cascade effect. Nowadays, it is easy for brands to create viral content with the right mix of media, PR and influencers, but at the end of the day, getting people to share this social content is difficult," she admits.

We also spoke to Varun Duggirala, the co-founder and the creative content head at The Glitch - a digital agency. He agreed with Agarwal, mentioning that while it’s been some time since Shrivastava’s initial video went viral, he has been seen across television and other traditional media and could still be recognised. "It’s an interesting case of leveraging his popularity across all mediums, especially traditional. So while his virality was a while back he still has enough recall value to generate interest in consumers. And it’s great timing because if it’d been six or so months more it might not have as much impact as it is now," he told us over e-mail.

He explained that virality, is the ability to latch onto a moment in ‘popular culture’ in a way that’s unique such that a user can’t help but share it. "While we talk about riding the waves of consumer behaviour, a viral moment is the start of one such wave and leads to a cycle of everyone trying to get onto the bandwagon until that cycle dies out before the next viral sensation arises. This process has lasted over the ages, it just finds new mediums and methods to be reignited, but the essence is the same," he opined.

He believes that Google leveraging Daboo uncle in an ad is a smart move that can benefit both the brand and the content creator. He further said, "I’d say anything we create is content. It doesn’t have to be defined into a bucket/box such as ads, etc., so keeping that in mind any creative asset that consumers engage with is good content, which will hold on to attention spans even if it’s long. That’s the beauty of digital media. If leveraged right it has no set template," he signed off.

Here are some other ads that Daboo uncle has starred in…