Its now ages since Kerala Tourism has come out with its new international campaign ( this is the digital world every day is a month,and every month is year ,) so I am like a year late with my take on the ‘Your moment is waiting’ video that has demonstrated intense reactions like a swaying coconut tree caught in thunder storm….. .
I belong to Kerala and have always felt proud of the fact… It was always a blissful feeling to hear and see praises heaped on your home by people, especially when one lived abroad and I have felt it more often than I could afford... The campaigns that made Kerala to be believed as God’s Own Country and help the brand catapult to the current iconic status were always about backwaters, beaches, boathouses, caparisoned elephants, conch shells, and multicolored Kathakali dancers …
This one is new and different and that is exactly the reason why many people seems to have fallen in love with it, and strangely, that seems to be the very reason why most of them hate it as well..
Ever since its London
The positive sides of this ad according to me are…
1. The attempt to walk away from the used to bits and pieces which we have been seeing across all the Kerala Tourism ads is BRAVE and DARING.
2. This video has a dreamlike and illusory feel which at times is almost numinous and even ghostly...
3. The sights, sounds and images are enamouring and the sensuality to the experience is prevailing, thanks to the production team by Prakash Varma and Co….
The film was shot over 11 days in locations at Thekkady, Munnar, Thalassery and Kannur and features upcoming international model Miriam Ilorah. The ad is intended (its basic objective) is/was to bring out moments that travelers can experience while visiting God’s own country… Stark Communication is the creative agency for Kerala Tourism ( a Govt department), while Prakash Varma of Nirvana Films Directed it….. The music has been composed by London-based band One Giant Leap and sung by Senegalese singer Baaba Maal.
Now those are some basic facts and now the critique side…..I don’t belong to the admirer side and hence this is going to be the longer part of the post.. As you would have already read it, the main complaint is that for people who have felt Kerala, this one does make them feel that it’s not the Kerala that they know of….
For me I would love to see the same images no matter how many times repeated, for that makes my place unique and real God’s own country… I wouldn’t want God’s own country so dreary and washed out.. I like the colour and the glitter in the eyes of the traveler who sees it……
For me the same basic plank would have been more comfortable and any experimentation or newness over it more acceptable than this entirely new plank itself….. I am against brands walking away from their basic plank with no strategic reason whatsoever… For Kerala the basic plank IS the greenery, the colours of Kathakali, and the coconut trees, its own brand of music like the tayambaka and panchari melam and other things… People come here to see it, feel it, experience it and go back and still live with it.. They don’t get bored of the same old images, but it seems the agency and the client did and hence this wishy washy approach..
The strongest of the dissent perhaps comes from the fact that this ad is heavily INSPIRED from this Mexican ad, and that too of Mexican TOURISM.......
see another one here…
The similarities are too much and parading before the naked eye that all of them cannot be just coincidental..Or if it is, it is the coincidence of a life time……. Ideas can be inspired, even shots can be, but when the entire film, ok…. not the entire film in this case, almost the entire film is INSPIRED it becomes plagiarism,. The success of good creativity is, as the saying goes, knowing to keep your sources a secret.. Here it is too obvious and the fact that it is moved from the same category is shocking.. Here in Adformula I have always been sharp and critical of copycats who bluntly lift ideas.. This one is no different either…
The girl right through the 3 minute film (here and there it is 3 minutes), the shots and angles, the sequences, slow tempo of the film, slow motion, the girl ,the headgear and dancers, the same kind of music (which has nothing to do with Kerala,) the girl and her liaison with the animals and the dry and washed out look is all the same, again and again.. But having said that I must also say that more than the creative copying, I am bothered at the callousness with which the brand essence is spoilt with mirth and abandon…. In short the only thing Kerala like is the logo and tagline which is (thankfully) retained.. but then again after the 3 minute African/Mexican wash out it looks and sounds total misfit… looks like the logo got misplaced in some wrong ad…
How I hope that team Stark stopped watching Mexican films and ads and get more real, so that we get ads that keeps the brand’s core and cream and still take the TG to the unexplored areas… If that is not creativity then what is?
How I hope that people across the world don’t see this ad and fall into a belief that Kerala is another place somewhere in Mexico Africa and pack their bags …!
Tail piece: “Bad artists copy. Good artists steal". - Pablo Picasso..
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