MAM
Nykaa’s new video with Blush for Karva Chauth
MUMBAI: Nykaa, in collaboration with Culture Machine’s digital channel Blush, has released a video titled Qaid featuring India’s first transsexual model Nikkiey Chawla.
The video is set against the backdrop of Karva Chauth, and showcases the start of a new tradition, one with a deeper meaning.
We are all trapped in our own cocoons, the very skin we wear sometimes feels alien to us. The quest to identify and understand who we really are is a continuous process but a road that doesn’t need to be traveled alone. Entangled in this theme, lies the story of Anusha and Kabir, a young urban couple who undergo one of the biggest changes in their relation which not only helps them understand who they are both individually and together, but also leads to strengthening their bond.
The thought that drives the struggle in ‘Qaid’ is that of gender as a defining identity and how it dictates the way we celebrate our rituals, especially how the bond of marriage is viewed through a tradition like Karva Chauth. The overarching learning the video aspires
to drive home is that, it is essential to ‘Celebrate You’ in any and every aspect of life.
”The mark of a great society begins with how deeply it acknowledges and cares about the challenges of its most exiguous minority groups. While the nation celebrates liberty for the L,G and B, let us not forget the ‘T’. Today, people need to understand the plight of nearly 21 Million strong gender dysphoric population- a number equivalent to the population of Australia. With this film, we want people to see that the difference between transsexual and transgender is the same as the one between a body and a soul. Since time immemorial, gender definition has been influenced by culture, class, and race but this idea needs an overhaul,” says Nykaa chief marketing officer Hitesh Malhotra.
Culture Machine vice president for brand solutions Sharique Khan adds, “Gender diversity has existed throughout history and across the globe. One of the most fundamental aspects of a person’s identity, gender deeply influences every part of one’s life. Where this crucial aspect of self is narrowly defined and rigidly enforced, individuals who exist outside of its norms face innumerable challenges. This does not have to be the case. Through a thoughtful consideration of the uniqueness and validity of every person’s experiences of self, we can develop greater acceptance for all. Not only will this create greater inclusion for individuals who challenge the norms of gender, it will create space for all individuals to celebrate who they are. With this common objective of creating awareness about gender dysphoria, harmoniously brought Nykaa’s vision and the storytelling of Blush together for this video.”
The video also features television actress Aakanksha Singh.
MAM
The Merit of Madness: How AI is Changing the Game in Advertising
By Ritz Malik, founder, Ritz Media World.
MUMBAI: When it comes to growth in a competitive landscape, a businessman always has to be a firm believer in Darwinism. You either need to bring a better product, or a better price, or both to the table to get customers and scale. Without this value proposition, you remain unnoticed, and staying unnoticed is not something that a brand wants to do.
You have to do all this and also make sure that you stay cashflow positive at the same time. Otherwise, you’re at a real risk of becoming a large hollow balloon that your competitors are just waiting for to explode or implode under its own weight.
As we’ve entered the era of AI, the notion of a product’s efficacy, cost efficiency, marketability, workflow management, and logistics reliability has become increasingly relevant and prevalently impactful. None of this is background noise anymore. It is the difference between bleeding money on traditional media and actually engineering a profitable campaign.
For example, META’s AI Algorithm has finally given us the ability to measure the ‘CREATIVE’ for a business’s promotions. The best part is that we can do so organically. Content that is actually relevant to the target audience gets more views through reach. This tells us exactly how the audience is reacting before we even scale the budget. This is how we have been gifted the ability to provide merit to the madness of the creative process.
So, our process is as follows:
A set of creatives is built for social media
Their performance is closely monitored for reach and engagement.
Based on the best organic performance, we choose the creative.
Make micro adjustments to add a sales proposition and CTA (but keep it subtle)
Publish the modified creative as an ad.
There’s a lot that goes on in between, but this is the basic method for getting it right. And this is just the AI that’s being used by platforms across the world.
AI utilisation is something that has greatly made the creative process a lot easier. As an agency that thrives on coming up with ideas that are out of this world, we have made the most of leveraging AI to bring ideas to life without spending a fortune.
So, this way, the ability to create high-impact brand stories is no longer under the tyrannical gatekeeping of large budget organisations. It is now that merit solely falls on the storyteller.
Now, AI-powered content production and the AI algorithm on Social Media platforms are asking the question: Is your content compelling?. If yes, the audience will watch your content, share it, and engage with it.
And when it comes to keeping budgets down, we can surely say that it holds the capability to execute million-dollar shoots at a fraction of the cost.
For example, we recently came across a creative challenge by a major Real Estate Developer from Gurugram. They had signed a celebrity couple for their brand ambassadorship a few months ago. They were now about to launch their new project, but for some reason, they could not get their shoot done.
What we came up with was to use the likeness of this celebrity couple and place them throughout the project’s feature video. With the help of AI generation, we were able to rebuild a completely new feature video with their brand ambassadors in 2 days, and no additional physical shots were required.
Imagine being able to save 50-60 lakhs in production costs, 15-20 days in production time, and comfortably be ahead of schedule to launch the project.
This has changed the game entirely. With AI, you can now just acquire the likeness rights of celebrities, and you can just build environments and scenarios with them. The balance between creative and artificial intelligence isn’t a battle for control; it is simply the ultimate tool for survival and scale in a landscape that rewards the fastest and the smartest.
