The 'Mentos-bar' and 'Center Shock-barber' commercials, after their marvelous run in India and other Asian countries such as China and Indonesia, have been selected for Italy.

Recently, Perfetti Van Melle SpA, based in Milano, Italy, had briefed O&M India on creating commercial for Golia Activ Plus, a brand which is yet to be launched here.

The new development was confirmed by AK Dhingra, director, sales and marketing, Perfetti Van Melle India Private Limited. “Yes, the campaigns have been selected for Italy. I don’t have the media plan so I am not in a position to reveal the scheduling,” said Dhingra.

On the development, O&M India group president and national creative director, Piyush Pandey said, “The campaigns on air will be same except for changes such as packaging and other basic requisites. Depending upon the packaging, in which the brands are available in a particular market, there shots have been worked on accordingly. Overall, it’s fantastic to see work being recognised for so many brands by the same client.”

Corcoise Films is pleased with the development. “It feels really great, primarily because it’s a role reversal, wherein earlier India was simply meant to follow what the West did. Now it’s flowing the other way,” said Corcoise’s executive producer Cyrus Pagdiwala.

“When we started working on the Mentos and Center Shock campaigns, we were only aware of the fact that international versions of Mentos would be used. So we accordingly worked on English voice-over and provided with different pack shots. We also shot with two sets of models for the Mentos campaign - one for the European market and the other for the Indian version,” said Pagdiwala.

Pagdiwala further added, “The international release of the Center Shock campaign was a pleasant surprise. We were briefed for this film and it was to be made only for the Indian market. However once the Perfetti team in Italy saw the films, they were so happy with the same, that they wanted to release the film all over i.e. Italy, China, Indonesia etc. These films were then sent to Italy with some minor changes. We handed over the films minus the pack shots and the voice-over, the reason being that the films had a Hindi voice-over for releasing in India.”

On the treatment, Pagdiwala said, “The film is being aired the way the director Prasoon Pandey conceived it and shot it. We have also removed the Hindi voice-over from the film to enable them to dub the voice-over in the language of the respective countries.”

The Center Shock film will be aired in Europe with a new colour grade (Telecine), wherein the hair color of the protagonist will be changed from black to another color (probably orange).

“After seeing the Center Shock films, Perfetti Italy decided that the Mentos film that we were shooting for India, be shot for the Italian market as well. Hence, Mentos production was done keeping in mind the international audience,” said Pagdiwala.

Sharing experience in the production of Mentos campaign, Pagdiwala said, “We casted for two sets of models. The girl and the customer in the bar that is Sheetal Malhar and Gajraj were to be maintained as common features for both versions, and we had casted for two models for our main protagonist. One was an Indian and the other a foreigner. We shot all scenes of the film twice (changing our main protagonist every time).”

The pack shots were also shot twice, once with the Indian packs and then with the Italian ones. The film was shot over a period of three days.

“Half way through the shooting of the film, Prasoon realised that the foreign cast was better. Hence the rest of the film was shot with the foreign model doing the Indian version as well. We however continued shooting the Indian guy for the Indian version for safety. The shot planning had then become so meticulous with numerous permutations and combinations of packs and models.”

On challenges in creating commercials for the international market, Pagdiwala added, “Whilst dealing with the international market, all aspects of production and direction have to be slightly re-crafted. The production design has to be done keeping in mind the taste of all concerned. Similarly the director has to do his storytelling in a way that is acceptable in good taste in India as well as international markets.”

For an example, Corcoise was asked to use the pre-composed international track for Mentos used all over the world for a long time now.

“Even though we theoretically agreed to do this Prasoon knew that this track would never fit this story and hence we recomposed the track for our film. We used an old Indian track for the Indian version and composed a blues track for the international one. We also sent them a tape with two transfers of the film. One with our version of the track, and one with their pre-composed international. We were once again pleasantly surprised when the client reverted appreciating the track we had done, and the fact that they would now use our new track with the film,” concluded Pagdiwala.