Fuji Bikes moves faith to save a mountain

Interface Communications along with Fuji Bikes created a powerful campaign to save the mountains, which involved mountain bikers and local villagers in Maharashtra

Aanchal Kohli | Mumbai | June 18, 2015

Click on the image to watch the TVC.

Interface Communications along with Fuji Bikes has created a powerful campaign to save the mountains, which are a rich source of natural resources.  Mountain bikers and local villagers came together to execute this bold idea, where they built a temple on a mountain in order to preserve it. Both mountain bikers and local villagers share a common love for the mountains, one for their love of the extreme terrain that it provides and the other because of the spiritual meaning that a mountain holds.

Unfortunately, in many rural parts of India the surrounding mountains are being destroyed for their natural resources and to make space for new industrial developments. The stone that is mined from the mountains is used for road building and other infrastructure activities. And the space created by mining out the mountains is used for commercial or residential purposes. The most affected are the poor villagers and tribes who not only live in the vicinity of the mountains but also worship them.

In a country like India, where religion is a super-sensitive issue, no one would dare to break a temple. And one cannot destroy the mountain without destroying or damaging the temple. Hence the mountain is saved.

BestMediaInfo.com spoke with R Sridhar, Group Creative Director, Interface Communications and Pankaj Marlesha, Director - Sales & Marketing, Longshine Global Enterprises, the exclusive distributors of Fuji Bikes in India, to know more about the campaign.

Elaborating on the creative strategy for this campaign, R Sridhar said, “To begin with, we built a temple to save a mountain. The belief was that this will prevent industries from digging it up either for soil or build any other structures because nobody in India would dare destroy a place of worship. We also believed that this building of the temple would draw the attention of society at large towards this cause. It was an activation which was done for Fuji Bikes, which has a range of mountain bikes and more importantly, a philosophy to overcome obstacles. So what we have done here is an activation which we hope will become a movement to save the mountains.”

Sridhar further said, “It would also save the deities who the villagers worship on top of the mountain. And this was also an initiative that was appropriate for Fuji Bikes, which has an extensive mountain biking range, to be involved in.”

The campaign kicked off in Hausachi Wadi on the outskirts of Mumbai. The villagers here worship the mountain because their gods live there. The cause gained momentum as mountain bikers along with brand Fuji Bikes joined the cause to save the mountains. A temple was built on top of the mountain exactly at the spot where their gods were known to reside. This entire activity of galvanising the villagers and the resources to build the temple took a month. On an auspicious day, the temple was inaugurated by a little village girl. Mountain bikers helped the cause physically by carrying bricks and other material up the mountain. They also helped draw attention to this cause. The result – one mountain saved. There are plans to extend this campaign to build more temples so that more mountains can be saved.

Speaking about the campaign, Pankaj Marlesha said, “The difference lies in the fact that while this is a pro-environment campaign, the vision here was not just to save trees but an entire mountain. It seemed fitting for a mountain biking brand and the mountain biking community to save the one thing they value the most – mountains.”

He added that the challenge was to get the locals on board with the whole idea. They stand to suffer the most if the mountains are destroyed. In this particular village, it so happened that all the other mountains had already been leased out. “This was the only mountain left and it was sacred to them because their deities were up there. So they did see merit in us building a temple for their gods and also saw how it would help them safeguard their place of worship. It was the meeting of two causes that allowed us to complete the project,” Marlesha concluded.

The TVC:

https://img-cdn.thepublive.com/filters:format(webp)/

Credits:

Brand: Fuji Bikes

Agency: Interface Communications

Senior Copywriter: Nitin Menon

Creative Supervisor: Pankaj Gharde

Senior Creative Director: Manish Ajgaonkar

Group Creative Director: Sridhar Rajagopalan

Chief Creative Officer: Robby Mathew

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