Mirchi makes mourners merry, builds on ‘happiness’ plank

Radio Mirchi has rolled out a film, aligned with its 'Mirchi sunne waale always khush' positioning. The film conceptualised by McCann India features the story of a head rudaali (professional mourner) and her young entourage.

 

It opens with the head mourner saying that whenever someone would die in their village earlier, her group would be called in. It cuts to a current scene: she cries unconsolably at a funeral, while the others sit around, silent. She taps one of them to get the group to join in, but they end up crying in a manner that’s more funny than sad. The client doesn't pay them for their services and asks whether they are rudaalis or jokers. 

 

The protagonist claims that this new generation can't cry properly and goes into flashback mode. She remembers her younger days and how she cried along with her team in a professional manner to receive great rewards. The scene shifts back to the present and the lady looks determined to teach her current troop the art of crying. They try several methods, but none work. The leader then pulls a fast one on the group by collapsing to the floor. Just as the group start crying thinking she is no more, the lady wakes up and instructs them to cry in the same way during the next funeral. But, that doesn't happen. They hum a Bollywood song instead. They're thrown out of the function due to this.

 

As the lady sits by herself, dejected, the group owns up. They reveal why their performance has been affected showing their mobile phones – they had been listening to Radio Mirchi. The lady plugs in the headphones to check ,and joins the troop for a jig. The voice over says, 'Mirchi sunne waale always khush'.

 

Prasoon Joshi, chairman Asia Pacific, CEO and chief creative officer, McCann India, said, "Radio Mirchi is very special for me and all of us in McCann. We've been partnering with them since the inception of the brand. This ad campaign is another gem in its repertoire. The creative team of Kapil Batra and Ashish, director Nikhil Rao and his production team have done a great job. My thanks to Mr Vineet Jain and Prashant Pandey's team at Radio Mirchi for the trust and faith. I am positive the consumers too, would love this ad which builds on the brand in such a fantastic manner." 

 

Kapil Batra, executive creative director, McCann Erickson, said, "Mirchi sunne waale always khush, is such a sharp and exciting proposition to work on. But the challenge was to stay away from the expected and bring this proposition alive in an engaging manner. Once we zeroed in on the ‘Rudaali’ idea, we further embellished it with our director Nikhil Rao. Though it has been less than a week since the ad hit the internet and TV, the phenomenal response makes it very clear that we have not just met but exceeded the goals we had set when we started working on this project."

 

Credits

 

Client: ENIL

Brand: Radio Mirchi

 

Creative agency: McCann Worldgroup India

Chief creative officer: Prasoon Joshi

Creative directors: Kapil Batra and Rohit Devgun

Copywriters: Ashish Nath and Kapil Batra

Art director: Rohit Devgun

Account management team: Tarannum Romani, Samir Sagar and Khyati Joshi

Agency producer: Jeet Kalra

 

Production house: Jamic Films

Director (film): Nikhil Rao