If you thought that the "Make in India" launch ceremony last month, with its smart-minimal podium; 24-feet LED screen flanked by Ashok Chakras; bright, well written brochures; mobile-friendly website, and Facebook page (which has crossed one million likes in less than a month), was much too spiffy to be agovernment production – you were absolutely right.
The "Make in India" launch was not a sarkari affair put together by unimaginative babus, but an event carefully choreographed by ad agency Weiden + Kennedy (W+K), led by V Sunil, its executive creative director. W+K, which bagged the "Make in India" campaign through an online bidding process, has a six-month contract with the government.
"We wanted it to be like an Apple launch, really slick," says Sunil. It wasn't easy. "We had to restructure a full frame inside Vigyan Bhavan, and really push very hard to get in the LED screen," he says.
It was W+K, too, who came up with the talked about industrial-wheels-lion-silhouette logo. Originally, it was an elephant and later tiger, says Sunil, but both were shot down because they were clichéd symbols of India and the election symbols of political parties. "Even the PMO wanted the tiger," says Sunil, refuting rumours that the lion was chosen for its Gujarat connection. It was the lion's connection with Emperor Ashok, whom Sunil calls "our strongest symbol", that went in its favour. As the prime minister put it in his speech at the launch: "This is the step of a lion...Make in India."
If today Make in India has become the foremost plank of the government's economic agenda – with a slew of recent announcements of reforms in labour policies, industrial licensing, etc - it didn't start off on such an ambitious note.
"It started as a campaign for investment, mainly pushing for manufacturing," says Sunil. That it then grew so big, according to Sunil, is the result of W+K realising "the importance of this campaign, and therefore the importance of a symbol or how you package it. We knew that it could be as good or as bad, as big or as small as we imagined it." Accordingly, the first slide of the initial W+K presentation stated "Industrial Revolution Part II" as the objective of the campaign. "That was for us to put pressure (that) we need to see it as a long-term project. We needed to show where the campaign can travel. Then it helps them to get funding, rally everyone behind," says Sunil.
"It also changes everything from being a campaign to being a programme," he adds. It got the interest of the PM, to whom DIPP secretary Amitabh Kant took the presentation. Sunil had worked with Kant earlier, when the latter was tourism secretary and W+K had developed the memorable Incredible India campaign. "The PM got very excited and said he will launch it. That's when the campaign went to another level."
Then on, says Sunil, Narendra Modi was involved in every stage of the campaign, right down to the contents of the invitation card. "It was he who said–put the QR code," informs Sunil.
And though he never met the PM (he'd wait outside his office while Kant or the joint secretaries went inside), Sunil is full of praise for Modi. "There are only a few people in India that I can trust with that sense of aesthetic sensibility, of sophistication and strength at the same time. Usually we celebrate Western sensibility or go desi. But the ability to take what we have, package it well and put it out there - very, very few people understand that design sensibility. For the PM to have that level of refined sensibility, I was in shock. Every input that has come from his office, basically from him, was perfect."
Sunil is also impressed with the pace at which decisions were taken on the "Make in India" campaign. "From pitch to decision, it was just two months. Considering this is the government, the speed at which they were operating, and the level of intellect and aesthetics they brought to the table made the private sector look really backward."
W+K, which is based out of the Oregon in the US and offices across the world, prides itself on doing work that reflects an "India that is finally comfortable in its own skin," by combining "regional flair, values and tastes with global aesthetics and pop culture." Besides Incredible India, it has also worked on the Indian Air Force campaign for the government, besides a slew of ads for private sector clients such as IndiGo, Royal Enfield bikes, Old Spice aftershave, etc.
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