W+K's Incredible India! campaign puts spotlight on die-hard Indophiles

Wieden+ Kennedy India has launched a print campaign targeted at inbound tourist traffic to the country, which will be released in leading luxury travel and lifestyle magazines abroad, primarily North America and UK. The print campaign has been shot by photographer Bharat Sikka.

Themed 'Motherland India', the series of five print ads looks at foreigners who have settled in India after falling in love with the country. There are plans to collate the amount of individual case studies that the W+K team unearthed and put them together online to build a word of mouth community for those interested in visiting the country and therefore requiring more information. This would include featuring documentaries of personal testimonials from these Indophiles, talking about their experience in India and help in building by virtue of word of mouth, a passionate online community.

The target audience for the print campaign is primarily inbound global tourists.

V Sunil, executive creative director, Wieden+ Kennedy Delhi, says that although investors were not the intended audience, the spillover of an improved perception of the country has certainly taken place. "When we started this campaign, that was the biggest change we felt. When we met business people or those who were doing business with other countries, they found the campaign to be very helpful in terms of the shift of image. That slickness of execution was never shown by India before."

The agency began work on the Incredible India! account back in 2002-03 (when it was known as A advertising, before its merger with W+K) with the Taj campaign. In 2003-04, the next campaign was launched, focusing on the theme of spirituality.

The next series of print ads that were released focused on the economic environment in the country at the time, when it was launched in 2006-07, focusing on the theme of optimism and economic buoyance. The agency also worked on the India Now campaign for the London market and the colour encoded campaign Colours of India in 2007-08.  

Sunil elaborates, "The people that we have identified in the print ads were those who had not just settled in India for good but in addition, had contributed a significant value to the adopted country."

One of those featured includes danseuse Devayani, a Frenchwoman who earlier went by the name of Anna Chaymotty. She visited India on a personal whim and ended up staying back in the country, being fascinated by Bharat Natyam. She has been in India for the last 25 years, practicing extensively as a Bharat Natyam performer. Another woman featured is Julie Martin, who teaches Yoga in Goa, and was earlier working in Hollywood. She had always yearned to come to India and eventually ended up staying back for good.

"Everyone had a story, and we are finding more people every day. We identified those foreigners who had settled here for good and were contributing to the country in their own way. We were careful about presenting each of the individuals realistically in their environment, without making it look like an ad," adds Sunil.