WEB FILM: JABONG – BE YOU
By: Bates CHI & Partners Fashion e-tailer Jabong has continued its ‘Be You’ campaign with a new brand film. The music video style commercial is shot indoors with models of all shapes, sizes, looks and make-ups. Many of their diverse looks go against conventions, such as men wearing articulate nose rings and women wearing green lip-stick. The commercial, which is getting positive reactions on social media, is directed by London-based film and art director Harvey B Brown. In September last year, Swedish fashion giant H&M launched a 90-second film with common people making fashion faux pas such as wearing pink over red and socks in sandals. It was laced with Iggy Pop’s powerful voiceover, talking of breaking rules and wearing what you want. I don't know if they inspired this work, but it’s surely inspiring by itself. Gurgaon based fashion e-tailer Jabong has been among the early movers in India, and while I don’t want to get into numbers, it enjoys a good recall among its TA, along with Myntra, for all things fashion. So why is a fashion brand telling us to be ourselves? Shouldn’t it be telling us what to wear? The simple answer is because it’s cool, once in a while, and it easily puts it into the mature/responsible/inclusive category. Jabong had last year released a more easy-going anthem talking about ‘being you’, and it also runs a magazine (a neatly designed one) flaunting colourful celebrities. This time, it has upped the scales and continued the campaign with an ear to the ground and an imported director known for his acclaimed work for D&G, Mont Blanc and more. Why do I feel its ear is to the ground? The core thought of the campaign is being comfortable in whatever you wear, i.e. whoever you are. Look around the headlines of any week in the past two years and you’d find the young rebelling against restrictive notions of ‘what to wear’ and ‘how to look’. That’s just my perspective, but if you junk the gyan, the film still stands out powerfully because of its production design – bling, kitschy and abstract. And like Iggy Pop’s voice exhorted us to break rules, the voice here, blending with lovely electronica and an old Hindi number, too politely asks detractors to stay away from judgments. My favourite line is ‘You don't have to call me pretty, you don't get to call me ugly.’ The campaign is reportedly a 360-degree one, but I don't see too much of it on Jabong’s Facebook page, which I suppose is a critical communication platform. The commercial has however made a splash in conversations and will go long in camouflaging the fact that Jabong is actually promoting consumerism by telling you look good in fashionable gear. Boom, good job! (To watch this film and Jabong’s past works, go to its YouTube channel ‘JabongIndia’) Social Newsfeed Your regular dose on the shifts in the social media universe Rajdeep now live-streams edit meets ‘Dr Snapchat’ takes you inside a surgery Now in my latest Snapchat snippets which have become weekly now, there has been a rather stomach-churning trend across the network – ‘snaps’ of surgeries. It has begun with a Miami surgeon, calling himself Dr Snapchat, who beams no-holds-barred videos and pictures from inside operating theatres. He already has half a million viewers a day, also because his subjects involve breast implants, butt lifts and tummy tucks. Now this might be interesting to a) medical students and b) those sickly curious about how the innards of a living human look like, which is a big number on the Internet these days. And before you think of the ‘ethics’ question, this doc claims he makes his Snaps after getting patients’ permission. AIIMS students like this Social tools as voices of rape victims For all its evils, social media has grown to be a reliable platform for victims of abuse and violence to voice their thoughts and stir a debate. The best instance of this was seen last week when Brock Turner, a swimmer at the Stanford University was convicted of three sexual offenses, but only to six months in a county jail. Among the various outrages shared online about how this was too lenient, the most powerful one was the victim’s court statement, a stirring, 12-page account of what the crime did to her. The statement has over 1.3 crore views on Buzzfeed, and remains to be the most important story we Indians too should read this year. Meanwhile, there have been signature campaigns, blogs, think pieces and spoofs already. Satyamev Jayate likes this
It’s a brave new world out there. India Today’s Rajdeep Sardesai, who has live-reported to us from various corners of India is these days live-streaming his daily editorial meets that happen in the channel’s HQs prior to his 8 pm show on weeknights. The veteran journalist and presenter surprised me with this update last week, and I immediately turned on the Facebook Live feed on the channel’s page. Now obviously one does not expect to be part of all the chaos that goes on in these meetings but these short streams are a delightful glimpse into the goings on of his office. Apart from taking transparency a level up, this also makes for a cool promotion of the upcoming show, which is one of the only sane daily news shows left on television. And guess what, in one live-stream last week, we even saw a copy of Impact on his table! Good taste, sir.
Prabhu Chawla likes this
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