Airtel 'My Song, My Story' campaign takes fans 'inside the music'

A new value-added service from Airtel called 'My Song, My Story' leverages music and the fascination youth have for it.

Watch the other ads in the TV campaign (story continues below)

Sachin Das Burma, associate vice president and senior creative director, JWT Delhi, explained the mechanism of 'My Song, My Story': "One needs to subscribe to Airtel Music by dialing 54411. Once you have subscribed to the product, you have the access to live concerts from top artistes. So on a certain date there would Sonu Nigam performing live and on another there could be Shaan. And you could not just listen to the live concert, you can also dial in to speak to these artistes live and ask them questions about their music. The whole show is very interactive in nature, and the listener gets to hear the back stories, interesting anecdotes and even the unplugged renditions of the artistes' songs." The communication task, he added, was to launch this product, create awareness and generate subscriptions.

On the insight behind the creative execution, Burma said, "Today’s youth don’t buy CDs or album covers. Music has become digital and in some ways less personal. Also they are extremely crazy and fanatic about their music. For the youth, having a track is not enough. They read up on the artistes and watch their concerts online. They’re the first to download the latest track by an artiste, and have all the versions of the songs. They’re interested in the story behind the song and how it was composed or sung and so on. They want to know everything that goes behind creating their favourite piece of music and about their favourite singer or musician. They don’t just listen to music; they get ‘inside their music’."

The proposition, thus, became, "There is a story behind every song".  Burma said, "We took popular artistes, like Sonu Nigam, Shaan, Hariharan and Kunal Ganjawala, and developed creatives that brought alive the song and the story aspect in a very light, interactive and relatable manner. The stories and songs were arrived at keeping in mind the interest of the younger audience that we were catering to."  Some of the songs featured in the spots are 'Tu Hi Re' (from the movie Bombay), 'Tanha Dil' (from the eponymous album) and 'Yeh Dil Deewana' (from the movie Pardes).  

The campaign also has radio spots, on-ground activations, and outdoor and print collaterals for retail outlets.

Credits

Client: Airtel
Creative agency: JWT India
Creative team: Bobby Pawar, Sachin Das Burma, Shantanu Mukherji
Account management: Nutan Sooda, Abhinav Kaushik, Akshat Singh, Ishaan Khandpur
Account planning: Atika Malik
Senior film executive: Dawa Lama
Client: Bharat Bambawale, Anuradha Sehgal, Ritu Soni Srivastava
Director: Sainath Choudhury
Production house: Purple Vishnu Films