'The ad doesn't push itself into your face like an unwelcome guest'

The campaign
To talk about one’s career’s best campaign in the midst of active work is to assume that one is already dead and it’s time to take stock. It says that there’s no further hope and from now on things will only get worse.

History is such a sly dog. It uses the past to nip at the heels of the future. The term ‘best’ for me is so relative and has always been a moving target. I would like to believe that my best work is just around the corner. So, allow me to share with you my latest work that many people in the industry have told me is among my best so far. It’s the new film and idea for Visa Debit cards.

 

(I must add here that this idea, like ideas before, has been created closely with so many beautiful minds that to say it is fully mine is to steal credit from others. See credit list alongside.)

Why is it my best campaign?
The Visa Debit card campaign is among my best because it’s not advertising. It’s not attempting to be clever or trying to crack a 30-second joke or push itself into your face like an unwelcome guest. It’s an inspirational story delivered authentically with an honest attempt to give a commercially successful brand like Visa a higher purpose.

It’s so emotional and pure in its story telling that when the hero of the film, Gulzar Ahmed, saw the finished film for the first time in a studio in Mumbai he broke down and could not speak for over two hours.

As a simple man from the upper reaches of Srinagar, Gulzar Ahmed had never seen himself this way, as a real hero. The film is simple, touching and feels so true. It gives you hope and makes all of us want to go out and fulfill our dreams.

The client’s brief to the agency
The brief was born in a sense at a ‘BBDO WorkOut’ session that was organised to focus on the opportunity of Visa Debit in the growing e-commerce world.

The three-day ‘WorkOut’ is a BBDO patented cross-disciplinary gathering of minds. Through a series of collective and individual sessions, a problem or opportunity is explored and interrogated to the extreme limits. The result is often a room full of observations, insights, concepts and brand ideas. It’s a highly collaborative brainstorm with a definite purpose. So, we structured the ‘WorkOut’ for Visa Debit. The team at Visa was part of this action-session. The client spoke straight from the heart about the power of the internet and the democratisation of payments.

Indians now have equal opportunity to dream and advance — not limited by geography or infrastructural challenges. This game changing social impact opened our eyes to the larger purpose of Visa Debit cards.

Problems and challenges
One of the challenges was how to tell all Indians the truth about the greater power of online purchase without sounding fake.

How do we make it personal even as we focus on the social. The challenges were all about execution. How do we get real people who have never seen a camera before to act in front of one? How do we shoot in Srinagar and near Kargil — where no ad has been shot before?

Various routes considered
The BBDO ‘WorkOut’ resulted in 4 distinct campaign ideas. All of them were unique solutions to the new e-commerce opportunity. There were routes like ‘the end of corruption’, ‘the joy of receiving goods at your doorstep’, ‘the power of dreams’, and ‘explore, discover, advance’. When we finally chose the winning idea, it was most spontaneous, instinctive and unanimous. The client played an integral role in the decision.

The route chosen; why

The idea was to create greater mass consciousness for advancement. The Visa Debit card liberates people to achieve their dreams by using the growing power of the internet. This idea seemed most right because of the times we live in. This was about a brand with purpose. The touching film set in the remote corner of India was an expression of this larger mission. The idea and execution also got the loudest applause at the presentation.

Outcome
There was a huge response on YouTube on the very first day of launch. It figured on Youtube.com home page as the most popular video of the day. Google wrote to Visa India saying that this is by far the highest number of views in the very first day for any BFSI campaign. It’s a banking and financial services industry record! The film has already crossed one million YouTube hits. It has already been voted number one ad by the viewers of CNBC Awaaz.