With an aim to address the need for positive entertainment, e-commerce platform Flipkart and Varun Dhawan recently announced the launch of ‘Entertainer No. 1’, a unique stay-at-home reality show under the Flipkart Originals umbrella.
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To promote the show, the brand introduced a TV and digital campaign featuring Varun Dhawan, asking the country to participate in this unique show. Filmed on a smartphone by the actor at his home, the concept and execution of the film drives home the show's message of innovating when entertaining from home, while practising social distancing.
The TVC is centred round Varun, who creatively uses everyday essentials as props to bring out the true ‘entertainer’ in him. He performs various acts, including rapping, using a bucket as a drum set, donning a hip hop look while cleaning, using the shower head as a mic — all in a quest to find India’s most talented entertainers and inspiring Indians to stay at home as they bring out their creative best. Conventionally, a TVC shoot of this nature involves creative and production discussions, all of which were done on video calls from home.
Vikas Gupta, Head, Customer Marketing and Digital Businesses, Flipkart, said, “At a time when the nation is spending all their time indoors, we found an interesting opportunity to use entertainment and cheer up India in a special way. Through Entertainer No. 1, we bring a unique stay-at-home reality show to our audience, which provides budding entertainers a platform to stay connected during this difficult time. What sets this show and its marketing campaign apart is the way it has been conceptualised and brought to life, entirely from home.”
Varun Dhawan said, “Being an entertainer, I constantly seek different ways to keep people in positive spirits and this show has given me a great platform to do so. This was a one-of-a-kind shooting experience for me and it required me to be more involved at every step of the way. I truly enjoyed working on this campaign and I look forward to judging some interesting entries for ‘Entertainer No. 1’ from across the country.”
Joy Ghoshal, Co-founder, Marching Ants, said, “This has truly been a paradigm shift in ad film making. We always had the notion that work from home was not too productive and here we were creating and bringing to life an entire show along with creating and releasing communication for it, from home. I would like to believe this is unprecedented. And I feel truly exhilarated that we could achieve this task in a never seen, never done before manner. This is history of sorts where we created India’s first digital reality show without stepping out of our homes. Every step of the creation was exciting, challenging and digital in its true sense.”
Entertainer No. 1, the eight-week show, allows participants to record their performance directly under the ‘video’ section on the Flipkart app, with a large library of songs and dialogues to choose from. It is open to participants over 13 years of age (allowing minors to participate under supervision), with no bar on gender or geography. People can participate and showcase their talent. The show consists of a diverse weekly challenge and the most popular entries each week will move on to the next round, for a chance to win exciting cash prizes and gift vouchers.
A new theme will be announced every Monday night and the top entries for each week will be revealed the following Sunday night.
The TVC:
Credits:
Client: Flipkart
Creative Agency: Marching Ants
Lead, Digital Solutions: Dhiraj Kapur
Creative Producer: Aditya Satarkar
Creative Director: Gaurav Mehra
Senior Copy Writer: Sushant Shukla
Post Supervisor: Adrija Bhattacharya
Post Producer: Deepshikha Nandini
Post Supervisor: Bhavin Bhanushali
Senior Editor: Ganesh Mene
Graphic Artist: Mohit Joshi