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Guest column: A nostalgic ad gets a gender twist!
The original creator of the famous chocolate commercial from 1994 on the viral ad it has inspired in 2021
I wrote the 1994 Kuch Khaas Hai Cadbury ad at the end of 1993, when I was 38 and had been in the industry for 11 years.
We had been trying to crack the adult market for chocolates, which were perceived to be kiddish given the huge market for children. And we wanted to crack it without losing the audience we already had (the kids).
The child in you
I thought, “There’s a child in each one of us, no matter how old we are”. That’s the free, childish glee we see in the dance the girl breaks into when the cricket team scores a six. Cricket was and is popular in India. But we wanted a girl to run into the field—that was unexpected in the 1990s. Gender reversal was never new to us, but the open talk that’s there today about diversity was not a topic of discussion back then.
We were also under competitive pressure. We had recorded the song even before I pitched the idea, and we haven’t touched the song in the 2021 ad. In fact, I used it in my presentation.
People are calling the 2021 ad a remake, but I don’t think of it as one. It’s a new ad because it is a fresh take. The gender reversal is there from the very first shot. The song is something people remember and we wanted to hold the roots of the original and give wings to the fresh take. This time though, I wasn’t involved as a writer but as a sounding board for the ad.
Focal point
You must focus on one thing and for this ad it was to suprise the audience in the first shot. This time, women are playing. We wanted to keep with our time and so we changed who was playing. Today, you can expect women on a cricket team because you see them there. In the 1990s, women’s cricket was so, so rare. 27 years have changed society a lot. In this ad, the Sikh boy is not the hero, unlike the girl in the 1994 ad, who was the star. The unfamiliar in the first shot and the familiar from what you’ve seen before is what makes this ad tick.
I am so proud of both ads. I had been in the business side of advertising for four years before getting into the creative side. I had been helping others on the creative side, trying to be spotted. I started as a trainee and really enjoyed it. I didn’t focus on climbing corporate ladders. My advice? Enjoy the game and you’re likely to do better. Write a good ad, a modern one. The immortality of any creation comes from the people and their love for it.
As told to Karishma Kuenzang
Piyush Pandey, 66, is the chairman of global creativity and executive chairman, Ogilvy India. He has been with the organisation since 1982..
‘I Say Chaps’ is a guest column where personalities from various fields write about an issue they feel passionately about.
From HT Brunch, October 3, 2021
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