Ogilvy crafts The Economist's maiden TV campaign for India

The Economist is back with its fourth campaign in India which invites its readers to 'interpret' the communication they see. This time, its a television campaign, created by Ogilvy, Mumbai.

Till now, the weekly has been focusing its brand communication on three key cities - Mumbai, Delhi and Bengaluru (with Pune being included in the last brand campaign) using outdoor and print as media vehicles. It was observed that a large part of the Indian audience still remained untapped.

Suprio Guha Thakurta, managing director, The Economist (India) said, "We had focussed on Delhi Mumbai and Bangalore till now. That has worked very well for us. However, the response to our earlier campaigns, specifically online, has shown the intense interest in the brand from across the country. We have, hence, decided to focus wider and there the obvious media choice is television. Also, television allowed us to add an extra dimension to the story telling."

There are two commercials that will be aired as part of this brand campaign. The first is based on the trend of Chinese workers migrating to work in Chinese-owned factories in India. The second is based on the fact that African children are being increasingly being used to fight in civil wars, at a great cost to themselves and their societies. Bob (Shashanka Chaturvedi) from Good Morning Films has directed these TVCs.

WATCH TVCs below

Other than television, these commercials will also be promoted in popular movie theatres and digitally on social media sites like YouTube, Facebook, Metacafe and Ibibo. The Economist has already activated these TVCs on these sites.

Thakurta added, "We will focus on infotainment and English movies as the two genres for the first exposure of the commercials. Use of television is  also an indicator of our belief in the Indian market's potential. And we are putting dollars (or should I say, pounds) behind that belief!"

Credits
Client: The Economist
Creative agency: Ogilvy & Mather, Mumbai
National creative directors: Rajiv Rao, Abhijit Avasthi
Executive creative director: Sumanto Chattopadhyay
Creative directors: Sukesh Kumar Nayak, Heeral Desai Akhaury
Production house: Good Morning Films
Director: Bob (Shashanka Chaturvedi)
Producer: Vikram Kalra
Director of photography: John Jacob Payapalli
Music: Ashutosh Phatak

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