Mumbai: Mumbai Mirror, the city’s favourite compact newspaper and 2nd most read publication in Mumbai, celebrates the rich social, cultural and political history of the Maximum City with the launch of a unique video-series that is aptly titled ‘Mumbai Mirrored’. Encapsulating the mesmerizing journey of the city from 7 islands to Bombay, and then to the commercial capital of India, it echoes the city’s history through a 5-episode video-series. In this series, Mumbai Mirror narrates the raw and real stories of the city as it has transformed over the years, through its political movements, structural development, socio-cultural shifts and emerged into a powerful force of the Indian economy. History connects us to our past, and helps us get stronger and wiser to curate the future. And, the series #MumbaiMirrored builds on the pride of every Mumbaikar whose heart beats for the city, to look back at the glorious history of the city and look forward to a bright future for the city.
Literally holding a mirror to the city’s transformation, Mumbai Mirror has conceptualized this series as a narrative filled with reflections of the city’s architecture, stories of historical events and reels of real pictures of the city and its history makers, taken from the archives. The journey from Bombay to Mumbai is narrated by 5 legends who have lived their lives for the city and helped to shape it into its present form. The legendary tales of the city are regaled by Gerson Da Cunha – a renowned theatre artist, actor and celebrated adman, Pushpa Bhave – a fearless Dadar girl whose activist gene transformed her into the Iron Lady of Mumbai, Shirish Patel – who will forever be known as the architect of Navi Mumbai, JV Pawar – the founder of Dalit Panthers in the city and Julio Ribeiro – the man responsible for law and order during turbulent Mumbai, and rightly titled as Mumbai’s Super Cop! The series is available across the publication’s digital and social media platforms as well as at www.mumbaimirrored.com . The video-series will inform people about the rich cultural heritage of the city everyone calls home and leave them with a desire to explore more about its history.
Mumbai Mirror launched the series with a never-done-before print innovation in its Sep 18 edition. Mumbaikars woke up to 7 unique jackets in the newspaper, symbolizing the 7 islands that the city built from. The innovative jacket also features reflections of 7 iconic structures of the city, that come to life only when looked through a mirror. Aptly leveraging the name of the series – Mumbai Mirrored, the brand used mirrors and reflections as a creative device to launch the video-series.
Speaking about the campaign, Sanjeev Bhargava, Director – Brand TOI, said, “Mumbai Mirror is the heartbeat of the city. The newspaper understands the pulse of the city and mirrors it like no one else – its nuances, its heartaches, its hopes and its potential. We champion the good in the city, and we challenge what is not. While Mumbai is a strong commercial capital, we felt that the younger generation should reconnect with the grit and gumption of the city and the stories of how it was built. #MumbaiMirrored is our brand’s ode to the rich history of the city that is told through multi-linear stories. It is a celebration of Bombay’s transformation to Mumbai through the lens of its first citizens. We look forward to our readers’ response to the video series and the message that we are trying to convey with it.”
Adding to the above, Senthil Kumar, Director of the video-series and the CCO of JWT said, “The idea is to curate our beloved city of dreams by holding Mumbai’s Mirror to it. The content digs deep into the memory bank of 5 different Bombaywallas who are now Mumbaikars, capturing their parallel journeys along with the changing city. For it is the daughters and sons of the soil of Mumbai who make the city what it is and the people are the mirror image of the city itself. It was a privilege to discover the parallel threads in all these journeys over the last 100 years as the glory of Bombay juxtaposed with the reality of Mumbai.”
In addition to the digital and social media outreach, extending the reach of the video-series, Mumbai Mirror will engage readers across their social media handles via interviews, articles, trivia and contests called, ‘Guess the Place Contest’, ‘Throwback Bombay’, ‘Then & Now’ and ‘Moments from Mumbai’. Tune into the episodes at www.mumbaimirrored.com and share your comments with us on our social handles with #MumbaiMirrored.
