When Tanishq weaved 'Vighnaharta' into the Covid-19 narrative

The frame opens with three elderly men inside a home, playfully fighting over who will hand over the gift to a young lady who they all seem to know well. The brand has your attention through the easy banter, and the story, without stretching too much, unfolds to show how the three senior citizens were extensively helped by a youngster through the pandemic who they consider their Vighnaharta. Lord Ganesha, also known as Vighnaharta, is one of the most revered Hindu Gods and is believed to remove all hurdles in our lives. The #WhoIsYourVighnaharta campaign by Lowe Lintas subtly aims to give a new meaning to this belief and urges the Tanishq customers to recognize the people who have come forward to extend help during the pandemic as the Vighnahartas. 

Elaborating on the thought behind the campaign, Sagar Kapoor, CCO, Lowe Lintas says, “With Tanishq, the human insight and human connect always comes first and then the occasion or festival and the jewellery buying aspect. If you think about it, in these troubled times you will find two or three people who have always been there for you or cared for you, it’s time we started realizing and recognizing the Vighnahartas of our lives, something which we didn’t give that much thought to in the pre-Covid 19 days. So we started with that idea post which we had a discussion with the marketing and brand team and starting building on it. Then we went back and thought of a story. Credit goes to this wonderful writer in our Bangalore team called Arpan Bhattacharyya who has worked on Tanishq quite a lot. He came up with the idea of the uncles being cared for and they pooling in the money to gift this lovely locket on the day of Ganesh Chaturthi telling the girl that you are our Vighnaharta.

Kapoor adds, “There was no written brief as such and the moment we shared the idea with the Tanishq team there was no doubt from their end that we should be doing this.”

Talking about the most challenging part of putting together this campaign, Ranjani Krishnaswamy, General Manager, Marketing, Tanishq, Titan Company Limited says, “The most challenging aspect was to give a slice of life feel to this campaign while delivering a very soulful message. We wanted the message to deliver many smiles without taking away the gravitas of what Vighnaharta meant this year. We were keen to capture the optimistic, upbeat sentiment without sounding dismissive of reality. So, this Ganesh Chaturthi we chose to focus on the Vighnahartas in our lives. They say God comes in many forms and more often in the form of a man. This catastrophe has seen the resurgence of humanity as a force. People came together to fight the multitude of challenges this pandemic & lockdown posed, new relationships of care and concern were forged, in small yet significant ways people reached out to help within their community, neighborhood, & country at large. This film is a tribute to all those Vighnahartas in our lives. It presents a new collection called ‘Wear your prayer’ a specially designed collection of Ganesha pendants with prayer engravings.” 

In fact the narrative from Tanishq this year has been about celebrating humanity, celebrating the innate compassion in human relationships, showcasing the many selfless acts that have emerged as the silver lining from the edifice of this pandemic. Their first consumer outreach was DuaKaSona2.0 that showcased the humble efforts at Tanishq during the pandemic and invited people to share their stories of #SunheriDua. The Rakhsha Bandhan campaign spoke of #CelebrateEverySister, a tribute to nurses who have been our fearless frontline warriors. And with the most recent Vighnaharta campaign they have taken forward the symbolism of Ganesha, the remover of obstacles, at this hour when humanity faces its greatest obstacle. 

Kapoor says, “From pitch to execution the agency took 12 days for completing the ad. Earlier, we used to struggle with iPhones, asked actors to shoot their takes themselves, it is not as manic anymore. I have done three physical shoots in the recent past. The first one was strange when we started wearing PPE suits and all but gradually it became fine.  Of course, we ensure that the agency doesn't have too many people on the set, because lesser the people, safer it is for everybody. Of course, we were shooting with senior citizens, so we had to ensure double the amount of safety. We had a wonderful director called Deepak Thomas who managed everything beautifully.”

Talking about whether the brand will spend more on advertising than usual this festive season, considering it was a rather dull 2020 so far, Krishnaswamy says, “Our marketing mix for the campaign is a combination of Digital, Print and PR. We have realized that consumers are actively engaged on digital as a medium, and VTR & engagement rates on our campaign have been very healthy. Print has always performed for us well as a response driven medium. We have also used PR strategically to talk about our design inspiration story. Festive season is a critical period for us every year, more so this year since Q1 didn’t go too well for all of us due to Covid-19. The media plans will need to take into account the media consumption changes that this pandemic has forced and special media opportunities that have surfaced as a consequence.”