Ogilvy decided to recreate the magic of ‘Har Ghar Khuch Kehta hai’ to ‘Har Ghar Chup Chap se Khuch Kehta Hai’. In its first installment, the recreated version of the iconic commercial gave us a reason to smile and appreciate what we have during the current uncertain times. The second installment, showcases individuals and families taking care of their homes in the current quarantine period. Upkeep of the house, an otherwise trying exercise, has now become a source of joy to family members. Children, grown men, even pets, everyone in the house is chipping in with their share of household chores. This relevant truth is beautifully captured to show how one’s relationship with one’s home, a relationship at the core of brand Asian Paints, is rekindled.
The creatives behind this film – Piyush Pandey, Sukesh Nayak, Kainaz Karmakar, Harshad Rajadhyaksha and Directed by – Neha Kaul – Corcoise Films
“Har ghar chup chaap se ye kehta hai,
Accha lagta hai,
Jab sab koi andar rehta hai…”
A very familiar voice, it is veteran adman Piyush Pandey’s voice.
MediaNews4u spoke to Piyush Pandey, Sukesh Nayak, Neha Kaul and Cyrus from Corcoise Films.
Piyush Pandey said, “The first campaign ‘Har Ghar Khuch Kehta Hain’ with my voice, came out in 2007, a house is an expression of your personality, each home has elements that express the personality of the person who lives there. It will always have a certain touch of its occupants, and paint is a part of it, we never desperately sold paint like some others, but selling homes you are proud of and paint is a part of it.
In this period of crisis Sukesh thought, we should do something which will go with this lockdown, as people are staying at home. When people are at home the scenario is totally different, we shot 2 films, in the second film which has been shot from the home’s point of view, the home is saying how the residents are looking after me.
The entire campaign is about the relationship between the home and its owners. It is like the home is an extension of the family. I recorded this VO in my walk-in closet as it was the only soundproof corner.
It was fun doing this, people are liking it, the brand is benefiting so what more do you want, particularly when you are working under constraint and put out a campaign that people like then it is also very satisfying’.
Asian Paints 1.0 -Har Ghar Kuch Kehta Hai
The idea to bring back ‘Har Ghar Khuch Kehta hai’
Sukesh: While on my daily chat with Kainaz and Harshad we decided that we should bring back the iconic Asian Paints Ad ‘ Har Ghar Khuch Kehta Hai’, this involved a draft session on what we wanted to say, everyone felt it was a great idea and then we sounded it off to ‘Master’ as he is the original creator of this campaign. He said Wow, amazing guys, well done. This is incredible. Now let me run my magic on top of it, he added some even cooler moments, because we wrote some lines on our moments that we thought was essential. Then he is sitting in Goa had some more very interesting thoughts and he added them to it. He recorded the voice in his closet and sent it back to us. Then once we had the voice, at that time it was we were absolutely at sea because we just had a thought and we said let’s write it and let’s see what can we do with it? Asian Paints and Corcoise films have a deep relationship, we sourced old footage and decided to rehash the footage. The footage was rehashed, but it did not work because those were contextual, so they had to be redone. Then we said let’s shoot. We then briefed our own families, friends etc. We had a lot of volunteers, they shot and sent the footage and once edited it looked brilliant
By then I had finished Tata Sky, there the whole film was shot on phones and with real people across 7 cities, so I had a better picture, better clarity. Then we briefed Neha and Cyrus on the second film, the execution here was more polished.
What we have learnt with these films is the craft in shooting, the execution is completely different.
Asian Paints 2.0-Har Ghar Kuch Kehta Hai
As a creative person what has been the learning at this time of the crisis
Sukesh: I think we have really honed our skills. With your hands tied behind your back creative people should not be limited by any form of expression if you asked me and what we have found is the immense backing in Ogilvy, I have been here for 20 years, we don’t have clients we have partners, when you have partners you just pick up the phone and you talk. The Tata Sky campaign came thru because Harit decided to open up every single services on their entire network to a million plus subscribers for free till the lockdown. A very bold step. When your partners do extraordinary things like that you have to do extraordinary stuff, then only the traction happens, if you do normal stuff, nothing happens. So I think between Tata Sky, Asian Paint and Cadbury, personally, I’ve learned a lot. You’re not talking to anybody all the time. We have a lot of we have been doing a lot of video calls and one interesting fact is that the groups are smaller. The decision making is really fast and beneficial.
We will all look back, we all have missed a lot of things that you want, keeping that aside, we also have learnt a lot. We will talk about these things as stories to tell over a few drinks when we are in happier times.
We will now write films in such a way that it constraints and you can shoot with one two people in a house. No need for 30-40 people crew and lavish sets.
Neha & Cyrus – Corcoise Films
Visualising and directing the 2 films
Neha: With the existing circumstances and trying to reinvent ourselves, we still want to tell stories and make films. We got a call from Ogilvy and they had sent over a VO for Asian Paints. In this entire process we realized that what we could do interesting films and make home videos more interesting. We called relatives and friends and asked them to shoot their home videos, to fit into the VO that Piyush had done for this campaign.
Initially the brief for the first film was let us do something with Piyush’s VO and put the visuals together from the previous film, we did an edit and shared it with Sukesh, but we felt that the warmth of the VO was not connecting to the visuals. That is when we decided to do something different, get our families to record this for us, that is how the first film came about.
By the time we came to the second film, we decided to up it.
Cyrus: We told people who were going to be part of the film, we don’t want it to look like a home video, but a little more professional, how they need to prop their surroundings, camera angles which would make the house look nicer etc.
When asked as to how did they convince people to be part of this campaign
Cyrus: We told them it was a short clip and it will be quick, one small moment of each person, that was the reasoning given to rope in people, then when Neha got more and more specific in what she wanted, for example the Piano sequence with the father and daughter, was not well lit so they had to go thru it again. As people got enthusiastic, we pushed them a little more, to give their best.
How has this experience been for you as a Director?
Neha: As I have said, we all are re-inventing ourselves, trust me, you can never give up the traditional way of directing, and you want to be there telling the person what to do and how to do it. End of the day the results are brilliant and everyone is loving these films.
