Posts tagged Equinox Films

Tag line: Muqaddar Ka Sikandar

Client: NACO

Creative Agency: BBC World Service Trust, India

Creative Director: Radharani Mitra

Director: Milind Dhaimade

Production House: Equinox Films

Description: An apparently married couple is shown getting cosy(actually naughty) in an elevator. As the couple steps out & nears their room, the guy the guy shows off pulls out a pack of condoms which almost slips out of his hands. As his wife suggestively tugs at him, the packet slips and drops down the stairs. Despite the wife gesturing him otherwise, the man hurries down the floors to retrieve the pack, in the process performing a series of stunts to avoid people & other hurdles coming up the stairs.

Finally, when he heroically retrieves the lying pack and cheers this win & his wife smiles back, he finds an old couple staring at him at the entrance of the building. But they eventually approve of his actions & the film ends with the man, who has a cheeky look on his face and the condom packet in his hands, as the elevator door opens. Then a VO says “Jo condom ka saath nahin chhode, wohi hai Muqaddar ka Sikander.” The scene cuts to the logos of NACO, National Rural Health Mission and Deluxe Nirodh.

Comments & Insights: NACO’s previous, and much-appreciated, campaign– Jo Bola Wohi Sikandar– focused on being uninhibited in using the word ‘condom’. Two years later, Muqaddar Ka Sikandar focuses on the risks of indulging in unprotected sex.

Ads creating awareness about condoms have hitherto been either educative or have shown sleazy sex as part of creatives but this one is a breakthrough. The idea is interesting and the premise is nice & also the music and the execution are exceptionally good. Then the casting looks real & fresh rather than known faces.

Men think it is macho to be invincible, and usually take safety for granted. The campaign aims at making people aware of the risks in practicing unprotected sex, and that safety must be insisted upon each time. Because every smart man knows that condoms come first, no matter what your heart or your partner says.

But is the viewer going to remember the condom or the stunts? You need to tell me newer facts starkly and scare me; and not just ask me to use a condom, which is an old message anyway. Nevertheless, there is always a high rate of recall value when the message is conveyed with exaggeration. We might laugh on such acts but for a government supported product, this TVC has caught the right nerve of the Target audience’s sensibilities.