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Satvinder,
Mr. Lele, Tiger Thangrajan and Misra ji! Wondering what these diverse
characters from across the country have in common? Here's what…
these characters are all endorsing lubricant major Elf. The brain
child of Ambience Publicis' national creative director Pushpinder
Singh, these characters can be seen in the four different 2D animation
ads that the agency has rolled out for their client - Elf.
 Now
to introduce these characters... Meet Satvinder aka Satty. She's
the quintessential Punjabi woman. The ad begins with our woman introducing
her self and telling us how her husband's bike has been zooming
since 1985. And the sole reason for the bike's splendid performance
is because she always insisted on using Elf Moto 4 Gold for the
bike, which is ever so reliable and sexy like herself! The jingle,
conceived by Singh, is catchy and foot tapping. And the character
of Satty is the typical dominating wife from Punjab but lovable
all the same.
 One
thing that strikes out of place in this particular ad is that it
seems a bit preposterous for a woman especially a typical housewife
to know about bike lubricants and their benefits. Speaking about
the same, Singh says, "If I get the viewer into a serious frame
of mind when he sits down to dissect whether a woman has knowledge
about engine oils, then obviously I am not succeeding. One of the
main reasons for animating the film and making it fun is so that
people don't get into the rational bend of mind. They have to just
see it, enjoy it and the message is delivered to them. Had a put
a real woman in the ad then probably people would have raised eyebrows."
Further
talking about the ad and the idea behind this campaign, Singh says,
"When we were thinking about making the ads, we were addressing
people who drive four-stroke bikes; in effect we were talking to
fairly young people say 18 - 30 year olds. All along lubricants
and engine oils take themselves so seriously and talk about longer
engine life or enhanced performance in such a manufactured way that
most of the ads have become blind spots and even if people watch
them, they don't believe them."
So
the agency thought that if they had to garner eyeballs towards the
brand, then something different had to be done. "Elf is not
exactly the biggest spender and therefore there was all the more
reason for the spots to stand out. So the priority for us was to
break the clutter as our media budgets were small and secondly we
have to do away from the skepticism or the lack of credibility as
people don't actually believe when you say it so seriously."
The end results were the light hearted and fun manner in which the
ads had been done.
 Coming
to the second character of Mr. Lele - the Maharashtrian. The ad
begins with Mr Lele introducing himself by saying - "Myself,
Free Advice Lele!" He is the one who is most concerned about
everyone else around him. His neighbour has just bought a new Japanese
original four stroke bike. The first thing that Mr Lele tells him
is to take care of his bike by lubricating it with the right kind
of engine oil. But much to the  dismay
of Mr Lele, he doesn't follow his advice and his bike's piston gets
jammed, which results in an accident. Mr Know-it-all Lele then tells
him - "Free Advice lele varna lele Elf Moto 4 Gold." (Take
free advice or else take Elf Moto 4 Gold)
 Elaborating
on this character Singh says, "Mr Lele's manner of speech and
delivery is like that of Sant Tukaram. We hit upon one character
and then we improvised on it. These fairly universal Indian characters
are laughed at, appreciated and spoofed across the country. And
by going in for 2D animation there is a lot you can pull off that
you can't with real characters."
 Coming
to the Bihari politician Misra ji now, introduced as 'Phatphati
Wale Misra ji' in the ad. The only real difference between Misra
ji and an (in)famous Bihari politician is the jet black hair instead
of the white tresses. The song he is singing goes something like
this…. "Phatphati Wale Misra ji, janta bole CM to-be."
Misra ji sings praises of his bike and says that the bike may be
old but the engine was still young at heart. Misra ji believes that
the opposition's coalition is very strong and that was all because
of the 'taam-jhaam' of Elf Moto 4 Gold.
 Speaking
on the character of Misra ji, Singh says, "We have spoofed
a politician in the Misra ji ad and I think if we would have put
a real character there, everyone would have pounced on us immediately.
People may not take it as a joke as it is really meant to be and
then there would be serious repercussions. Animation allows you
to carry on a part that you otherwise cannot."
 Tiger
Thangrajan, a stunt man from South India, is the coolest one. He
has been riding the motorcycle since the last 32 years and even
gets offers from movies to perform stunts. He too, speaks of the
Elf and how it has helped his bike for all these years.
 Singh
informs that for once, the client did not have any problems with
the scripts that were presented to them for the ads. "There
are these rare occasions when the client doesn't say a word against
what you are doing for them and this was one of those rare occasion
when the client went by what we showed them."
 The
visualisation of the characters was done jointly by Ambience and
AniMagic. "It took us about 10 days to animate one film. While
we have outsourced the animation, the master production has been
done completely in-house for a simple reason that we thought we
could have better control over things if we did it in-house,"
says Singh.
It
is still early days to judge how the campaign has done in the market
as it has been out for just a week now but Singh is quite confident
that due to the different treatment of the ads, the campaign will
do Elf a lot of good. A print and radio campaign to accompany television
is also being thought of, but the details of these have not yet
been decided.
Whatever
said and done, one thing's for sure... all four ads are definitely
music to the ear with a catchy and foot tapping score, which makes
you want to hear and see them time and again.
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