I wish the brain drain from advertising was lesser: Keegan Pinto, FCB Ulka

A recent ad by Tata Trusts has been tugging at heartstrings. When it came out in February, the ad broke the internet with its depiction of the struggles of a sanitation worker who has to risk his life to clean a drain. The ad not only got shared widely by celebrities but also got the PMO to come out to announce complete abolishment of the practice with a plan to achieve it, and relief measures for the sanitation workers. The ad was created by Keegan Pinto, the National Creative Director of FCB Ulka. Pinto, a copywriter-cum-musician, chatted with exchange4media on juggling between the two worlds, putting together the thought-provoking ad and more.

Pinto said that the idea was built on the insight that sanitation workers die at the early age of 55-56. “In this case, we had to put pride and dignity into the worst job in the world, and that was the start of everything. So we told a story of innocent pride that a little boy has for his father and his job, and at the same time made him make a plea towards saving his father's life by having us segregate our waste by including two bins in our lives,” he remarked. 

To give it the element of irony, shock and surprise, Pinto and his team juiced the insight of how the worst job in the world can rightfully be called the most important job in the world. “Managing what is under the ground is what manages what is above the ground. People who manage the gutters of the country actually manage the country. When you think of it, it is true. And then, there’s the first learning in the book - the headline has to punch you and pull you in by the collar. Therefore the dialogue ‘Mera baba desh chalata hai,” he said. 

Among the challenges of putting the ad together were getting the little boy to act and creating a drain that looks realistic enough to wrench your heart. Moreover, the shooting inside that drain although it was created for filming, was extremely difficult. The efforts paid off when the video went viral.

“It seems to have gotten more than 7 million organic views based on our estimates. From my personal non-promotable Facebook account, I got a whopping 14000+ shares, which is unheard of from a personal account. It went truly viral on WhatsApp and reached a massive percentage of mobile phones in the country. Almost everybody we spoke to had ‘already seen it on their WhatsApp’ and it also received organic shares from celebrities like Sachin Tendulkar,” Pinto remarked.

The ad maestro has composed music for ads like ICICI Prudential's 'Bande Achhe Hain', Onida AC's 'Hum heat mein dheet hain' and 'Khaali khaali haathon se kitna de jaati hai Maa’ for Horlicks. When asked how he manages to do both copy and music for the same ad, Pinto said that it comes easily to him because as the creator of the overall communication piece, he is the closest to understand the core spirit of the piece and therefore also its musical vibe. 

 “I keep composing for the ads that I conceive, now in my career and I have been doing this for a while for ads and for multiple promos during my stint as Creative Head at MTV. So I believe I can translate it musically better than an able resource where there might be a loss in translation,” he asserted. 

When he looks back at his advertising journey, Pinto wishes he could still do beautiful, static, layout-based, graphic-design based communication for print. “I think that did die sort of in front of my eyes. Also, I wish English grammar still existed. Young writers aren’t concerned enough to protect the very spine of writing, that is Grammar. And it needn't be only getting your English grammar right, it could be Hindi too. I guess no one cares about the details anymore,” he asserted.

 Pinto added, “I wish that the brain drain from advertising to other creative avenues was lesser. “When I was younger, there were talent heavyweights all around me on one floor of an ad agency. They seem to have disappeared. But this should be seen as a huge opportunity.”