Rebirth of INS Vikrant: Bajaj Auto & Leo Burnett script a mega project
Leo Burnett ideated and executed a teaser film for the new Bajaj V bike made from the scrapped metal of the once invincible INS Vikrant. Leo Burnett's Saurabh Verma and RajDeepak Das share key highlights of this gigantic project
Aanchal Kohli | Mumbai | February 3, 2016
Well, we all have heard stories about the 1971 Indo-Pak war wherein INS Vikrant, a majestic class aircraft carrier of the Indian Navy, was instrumental in India coming out victorious. In 2013, the real hero was asked to be scrapped by the Ministry of Defence as it was becoming difficult to maintain it.
To keep alive the memory of INS Vikrant, Bajaj Auto decided to revolutionise the commuter bike segment with the launch of its new bike, Bajaj V. Unlike any other bike available in the market, it is forged from invincible metal from India's war hero, INS Vikrant. The bike is a reminder of the warrior spirit of India's first aircraft carrier even after it was decommissioned.
For decades, Bajaj Auto has been a pioneer in the two-wheeler category. And Bajaj V is touted to be the auto giant's biggest ever launch in the last decade. With the arrival of Bajaj V, millions of Indians can now be proud to own a vehicle that embodies the indomitable courage and pride of INS Vikrant. The war hero that conquered the seas will now conquer the roads.
This thought-provoking step was made possible by Bajaj Auto in collaboration with Leo Burnett. A teaser film was launched on January 26, India's Republic Day, giving bike enthusiasts a glimpse of what is coming.
BestMediaInfo spoke to Saurabh Verma, ?CEO, Leo Burnett, and RajDeepak Das, Chief Creative Officer, Leo Burnett, who shared the real story behind this revolutionary step.
Creation
Sharing the journey, Verma said, “For a long time we had in our mind on figuring out how to take the iconic 'Humara Bajaj' thought ahead for the brand. It was a struggle because it did wonders during all these years. The question was how do we do it and unleash the sense of pride in a way which is more experiential and matters to people in this day and age. This was a challenge for sure. We believe in creating prototypes every day and for Bajaj V too we wanted to create something that is different and influential. We created a prototype and after that what Bajaj did was iconic. They took our idea and made it bigger!”
“INS Vikrant has always been a symbol of pride for all Indians. We therefore wanted an idea to communicate pride in a powerful way. With this idea, we are giving a chance to every Indian to own a little bit of pride. It is exciting to see how the idea is shaping the product design and strategic communication,” Verma added.
Creating something like this takes a huge amount of time. When asked since how long they had been working on the concept, Das replied, “We started working on this about 15 months ago as it was not just about making a campaign. To build something like this takes a lot of time as this is not any bike but it is 'The Bike'. It was about creating a pride for the entire nation and a brand like Bajaj is one of the best known names of the nation. Also, the idea was to not letting the real hero, INS Vikrant, die.”
AR Rahman's world famous track 'Maa Tujhe Salaam' brings alive the spirit of patriotism among millions of Indians and the same song has been used in the teaser too. Leo Burnett is not leaving a single stone unturned with Bajaj Auto in every aspect of the launch and the brand-building exercise.
Das further said, “To create maximum impact, we were clear that the idea and the narrative had to be experiential in design. We wanted to bring alive the spirit of INS Vikrant and create inspiration for people in their daily lives, so they can ride the pride.”
Challenges
What is unique is that the scrap metal of INS Vikrant was bought and then melted, welded, moulded and then forged with the metal that was used to make the new bike. What's more, INS Vikrant also inspired the name of the bike: Bajaj V.
Speaking about the challenges, Das said, “Everything was a challenge in this case. The biggest one was confidentiality. Nobody in our office apart from a core team that was working on it had a clue about what was happening all this while. Starting from the ideation to conceptualisation to execution, every step was challenge.”
“The hardest thing was to understand and find out where the scrap was being sold. As an agency we went to all extents and in-depth research. For this we partnered at equal level and once you do that it does not matter who does what. There was so much passion in every single step right from designing, creating website content and much more. This was a massive project,” Verma added.
Interestingly, Das informed that there was a team sitting in big media houses to cull out the images, news, etc., related to INS Vikrant during its heroic days. Highlighting another important aspect, Das said, “We never wanted to show which country was right or which was wrong. The idea was to communicate a story about INS Vikrant and the creation of Bajaj V. The communication had to be balanced and equal.”
Media Mix and Response
The teaser video created a huge buzz. On January 26 there was a major roadblock on quite a few channels to launch a gist of what was in the pipeline. “The response has been amazing. We have been receiving messages and comments from every nook and corner. Not only Indians, but when we made our friends outside India watch this video, they too appreciated the entire idea,” added Das.
The TVC:
Credits:
Client: Bajaj Auto
Senior VP – Marketing, Motorcycles: Sumeet Narang
Bajaj team: Soumya Das, Debasmita Datta
Creative agency: Leo Burnett
CEO South Asia: Saurabh Varma
Chief Creative Officer: RajDeepak Das
Executive Creative Directors: Prajato Guha Thakurta, Sachin Kamble
Creative team: Kevin Lobo, Vikrant Yadav, Ashish Sharma, Sriram Iyer, Vikrant Wadkar, Deepak Jage
Planning team: Rajeev Sharma, Akshaya Karanth
Account Management: Sanju Menon, Rajiv Wadhwa, Anuj Abraham, Varsha Roy
Production House: Keroscene Films
Director: Rajesh Saathi
Producer: Harish Nambiar, Ankita Malhotra
Team Indigo Consulting:
COO: Harshad Hardikar
National Creative Director: Navin Kansal
Art (Digital): Viresh Pawar, Sacchidanand Chavan, Satyawan Hande, Sushant Sawal, Yatin Tondwalkar, Mangesh Paralkar, Milind Haldankar
Technology: Ramesh Shah, Alok Mathkar, Prashant Walavalkar
Business (Digital): Dhaval Doshi, Alfie Saldanha, Angad Chowdhary
Planning (Digital): Deepak Gopalakrishnan
Copy (Digital): Aditya Seshadri, Craig Stephens