Speaking to Campaign India about the latest commercial of the 'G maney Genius' series, Rohit Malkani, executive creative director, Grey said, "After owning a successful brand property “G mane Genius” for over two years, the client’s brief was to explore a new dimension of ‘Genius’. There was a need to give it more character, more depth. And, the one way to dimensionalise ‘G mane Genius’ was to create ‘genius for a cause’.
Watch the TVC here:
The film opens with Aamir Khan and a group of boys who are playing cricket. They break the window of an old age home with the cricket ball. However, the group is very surprised to find the old woman return the ball meekly, without any display of anger at the mischief. When they probe her for the reason, they realise that the old age home is going to be lost to land sharks. Soon, Aamir and the kids devise a plan where they spread rumours about the woman's house being haunted. Soon, the news spreads like wildfire and even makes it to the news, whereby people flatly begin refusing to even the idea of purchasing the house, hence resulting in the deal getting cancelled.
Commenting about the idea of the campaign, Malkani explains, "The communication objective was to knit ‘G mane Genius’ with an entertaining story and reinforce its presence in the consumer’s mind. We started with quite a few story lines and then locked on to ‘saving an old age home’. Inspiration came from some houses in town which no builder is ready to touch because of their haunted reputation, and news channels which make news out of anything. Several stages later, the script evolved into “Bhoot Bangla” where kid’s genius
combines superstitions and sensationalist journalism to help a bigger cause."
Added Malkani, "The Parle G kid uses his Genius and gets back at land sharks who have forced an old lady to vacate her house. He uses the popular genre of ‘sensational journalism’, spreads a rumour that the house is haunted and saves the day with Aamir’s assistance. In the coming days, we will further strengthen the G = Genius positioning through more consumer interactions and going beyond conventional mediums."
Credit details:
Project: Parle G “Bhoot Bangla”
Client: Parle Products
Creative agency: Grey group
National creative director: Shalini Dam
Creative director: Mangesh Someshwar
Copywriter: Mangesh Someshwar, Rohit Dubey
Art director: Mangesh Someshwar, Rohit Dubey
Production house: Rising Sun Films
Director: Shoojit Sircar
Planning team: Sagnik Ghosh
Client servicing team: Mithun Roy, Ronita Ghosh, Nazneen Dharamsey
Post-production studio: Prime Focus
Media used: TV