By Malay Desai
By: Interactive Avenues
Three days before Independence Day, mobile brand Micromax launched a song featuring 10 artistes from the music industry. A rendition of AR Rahman’s track ‘Roobaroo’, the song is written in nine languages and is shot in studios as well as rural and urban areas, interspersed with shots of common folks carrying tiny flags of alphabets from regional languages. This recreation is an extension of the brand’s commercial for the Unite 2phone, which featured a senior citizen hoisting a flag with a Hindi alphabet.
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As you read this, owners of world’s tenth largest and India’s largest mobile phone maker would be on the happiest extended weekend of their lives. Last week, a Hong Kong based company claimed that Micromax had overtaken Samsung in market share; so this latest brand film, a unite anthem, celebrates much more than Independence Day.
Launched as a 360-degree campaign with Sony Music, which, post Kolaveri Di has built an enviable name in digital media, this track has made several marks in the right section. First up – whoever’s chosen the artistes has done a fabulous job, of course with the help of a bulging purse. Performers such as Benny Dayal, Neeti Mohan and Kamaal Khan bring their Bollywood fan following with them, and the indie picks such as Raghu Dixit, Voctronica (India’s first all-vocal orchestra) and rapper Brodha V add beautiful depth to the eventual song. It’s another matter that any music lover will feel teased with this line-up or the fact that all these talents from multiple genres put together an unoriginal track.
Let’s not forget amidst waves of patriotism that this video is likely to floating in, that it’s also a pure brand film, plugging its Hindi-enabled phones to the vast Indian market it wants to capture. ‘Our language’ is the hero here, and at the time the anthem is being launched, is surely doing some heroics.
The track cleverly furthers the point first made by the old man on a terrace hoisting a white flag. The flags make a comeback, and the emotion isn’t of surrender, but the confidence that has taken Samsung down. The product reference is in the face, unlike the bizarre film Honda launched recently with Akshay Kumar.
The video has been neatly shot and has its deft, goosebump-y moments, but it isn’t something we have not seen after Bharatbala gave us the iconic Vande Mataram in 1998. In fact, this seems quite a tribute to it in terms of visuals, but unlike Rahman’s song, this one falls flat toward the end – after one expects a spectacular climax.
Now if only Micromax had all the film’s text in Hindi too, then made the packaging that. Special edition Canvas – what say?
Happy Patriotic Season!
To watch this film and the conversations around it, search with the hashtag #MicromaxUniteAnthem on Twitter or Google
