M&A: MP Just Got More Interesting
The world looks far more intriguing and magical from a child’s perspective. Madhya Pradesh Tourism’s latest ad in the ‘Dil Hua Bache Sa’ series, is counting on that magic to reach out to the child in everyone. The ad is woven around the famous water festival Jal Mahotsav of Hanuwantiya, Madhya Pradesh.
The ad film — conceptualised by MP Tourism’s agency, Ogilvy & Mather, and produced by Ransom Films — features a series of watercolour paintings that showcase the activities held at the festival with a playback song sung by kids.
Explaining the campaign’s idea, Azazul Haque and Mahesh Gharat, chief creative officers at Ogilvy Bangalore, say, “Every Madhya Pradesh Tourism campaign is like competing with our own past campaign. Once again, the challenge was to create a piece of communication that also looks like a piece of art, like every other MP Tourism campaign. Since the brief was to create excitement around Jal Mahotsava, a magnificent event that is held on the island of Hanuwantiya where water-related sports and activities take place, we thought using watercolour paintings created by children would be the best way to capture the fun and excitement. But then, static watercolour paintings were not enough to showcase the exuberance and energy of Jal Mahotsava. So we decided to make the characters in the paintings move. That was a Herculean task. Rajesh and Vidya, the directors of the film, played a significant role in helping us overcome this Herculean task.”
The stop motion film, which took about three months to complete, was shot with over 700 watercolour paintings, where the key frames were painted by children, and the style was carried forward by more than 30 professional artists. Using the Kessler Rig stop motion technique, the film was shot in a single take. “Even the words in the song are kept childish and only the sound of water drops and Ghatam (a clay tumbler) are used to create the music. We wanted to create childlike magic in this campaign,” add Haque and Gharat.
Jal Mahotsav — to be held from 15 October, 2017 to 2 January, 2018 — is now in its third year. A slew of activities such as hot air balloons to jet skis and zip lining, are organised at the event.
Says Ajay Menon, Executive Vice President, Ogilvy India: “It is always a delight to work on a brief from Madhya Pradesh Tourism. We hope the campaign excites people enough to plan their next trip to MP.”
