ABP centenary campaign is a take on the inquisitive gene that makes us human: Agnello Dias

ABP Group recently launched an interesting centenary campaign reflecting its journey through the Indian media space. Presented as a cinematic parable seen through the eyes of a child, the film soon became a mass favourite because of its stellar storytelling and its take on the journey of ABP Group in the ever-evolving media landscape.

e4m got in touch with Agnello Dias, the creative force behind the campaign along with Sharpener Design Studio helmed by Hetal Ajmera and Bianca D’Sa, to understand the creative process and his experience of working outside an agency, and partnering with the Group.

Click on the image below below to know more about the campaign.

Speaking about what excited him about working with ABP Group on this project, Dias said, “The part that really got me interested was the fact that they did not want to peddle any product for the centenary campaign but instead conceptualize, articulate and put out a belief or a kind of life philosophy that held true for all humanity and what the group believed in as well.”

The philosophy that Dias talks about is how curiosity makes everything interesting and can make people traverse beyond their comfort zones to seek answers. It is depicted in the film via the journey of a child across India that spans geographies, cultures, roots, and traditions to find ‘Corio City’, a word that he happened to read in a paper. The film seamlessly encapsulates the journey of ABP Group and the role it plays in satiating the curiosity of generations through its content.

Dias shared that the final idea was a collaborative effort between him and the ABP brand team. “I came up with the core thought first, before finally writing out the film script for it. With Future East, the production house, I discussed the various approaches to mounting and pitching the story, but the core idea was already done when I took it to them.”

It was one of the rarest times that he kept the idea flowing through one route with one approach and one tagline from the word go, without any other ideas or thoughts presented to the client, he added.

“For me, most thoughts start out like a wild beast that must be controlled, tamed and pinned down to work for the brand. So, we have a chaotic churning period where our minds are circling the beast, figuring out how to tackle and tame it. During this period, we – Hetal Ajmera of Sharpener, Lata Vasudevan Bagchi – the co-writer and myself - had a lot of conversations around the notion of curiosity; a lot of talks, talks, talks about the thought, over the thought, under the thought, and all around the thought. It was tossed, turned and marinated inside my head till I homed into what I thought was an opening to go in and take a shot at nailing it. In this case, we felt that if we reverse the conventional cliché about curiosity providing answers to questions, it could get us a fresher challenging take on the inquisitive gene that makes all of us human,” Dias elaborated.

As engaging as the film is the campaign tagline – ‘Curiosity questions answers’, instantly strikes a chord with the audience. On being asked how Dias zeroed down on this thought, he noted, “To constantly want to know more, to explore new truths and challenge old ones is the cornerstone of civilization. In fact, in many ways, it separates the human species from the rest. I was grappling with the challenge of capturing this thought – that the human mind can both explore the unknown and turn inward to challenge the known – in a single line. It resonated deeply with the ABP Group as it captures not just a facet of humanity but is also the true essence of journalism in its purest form.”

The ad film also turned out to be Dias’ project outside the walls of an agency post his exit from Taproot Dentsu a year ago. Additionally, most of the work on this campaign was done during the Covid lockdown. Dias shares that the experience of dealing with all this was surely enthralling as he quips, “It was a little odd at first because we didn’t have strategic planners, servicing partners or the structure of a network agency. Moreover, it was lockdown time. So, most of our brainstorming had to be done virtually. One of the challenges working is that one is woefully short of bouncing boards for concepts at an early stage. The variety of minds that one bounces off raw thoughts - from a servicing intern or a senior strategic partner to a layperson, all of whom one has access to in an agency - is not available to you. The positive fallout of this is that it stimulates you to draw upon all your reserves of experience, intuition, self-scrutiny and introspection to arrive at what would still be a powerful piece of communication.”

Despite that, the film was conceptualised just within a month, “From the time we were briefed till we made the first and, what turned out to be the final creative presentation, was only about a month. What kept pushing the campaign development timelines was the increasing number of lockdowns due to Covid, and therefore postponements in plans, schedules, etc.”

What aided this quick delivery was possibly Dias’ chemistry with the rest of the partners working on the film. He noted, “Both Hetal Ajmera of Sharpener Design and Lata Vasudevan Bagchi, who is a freelance writer, have worked with me before in an agency. I have always liked Sharpener’s quirky sense of visual design and thought it would be great to challenge them with a design approach that called for an affirmative, bold, striking and mature tone of voice rather than a quirk. Hetal created the remarkable face-in-question-mark symbol, which is both striking and restrained after which the campaign’s look and feel flowed organically from there.”

Dias further added that director Ashim Ahluwalia of Future East brought to the table the sheer passion and a crazy obsession with making the script happen. “Right from the day he heard the idea and the script, he has been even more passionate than me about making it come alive in its purest form. And the result would not have been possible without his infectious madness.”

On being quizzed about the most interesting feedback he has received on the film, Dias shared, “The film has generated a very positive response and has crossed over 4 to 5 million views across platforms already. The usual positive feedback aside, there are a few detailed ones like the one that mentions the use of the circular lamp above the child’s head when enlightenment dawns upon him. It was deliberately written into the script, and it feels nice when a designed nuance actually gets picked up.”