One black coffee, please: The ad that won India her first Lion at Cannes
India picked up 18 prizes at the recently-concluded Cannes Lions International Festival of Creativity. But how many remember the country’s first win at Cannes?
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A middle-aged man arrives at a posh restaurant. He spots a gorgeous woman seated nearby, looking at him, and speaking to him.
He responds to her welcoming ‘Hello,’ and approaches her. She pulls an Ericsson mobile phone from under her hair (on which, we realise, she was speaking to someone else), and mistaking him to be the waiter, orders, “One black coffee, please.”
It was the year 1996. Piyush Pandey, now Chief Advisor, Ogilvy, rang up his ad film director brother Prasoon Pandey at 2:30 am. “Congrats, dude! Your commercial won a Silver Lion,” he said.
The film was India’s first win from the film category at the Cannes Lions International Festival of Creativity, Prasoon told Storyboard18.
One black coffee: The genesis
Rajeev Agarwal was the Chief Executive Officer (CEO) of Nexus Equity, the advertising agency. The agency handled the creative mandate of Ericsson, a telecom multinational.
One day, he sent three scripts to Prasoon. The first script highlighted how sturdy Ericsson was as a phone. The second spoke about how the phone could be operated using a single hand, unlike other phones available at the time, where you had to pull out an antenna, requiring the use of both hands.
The third script touched upon how small the phone was. Prasoon found the scripts to be all over the place and conveyed the same to Agarwal, and asked him to choose one. But Agarwal, in turn, asked him: which one would he choose?
Regarding the sturdiness of the phone, in 1995, Motorola had already released a ‘Motorola cell bowling’ commercial that showed how tough the phone was. Hence, that aspect had been explored.
Prasoon explained to Agarwal that people would realise the value of single-hand use only once they've used a cell phone. Hence, he would not go there.
As he chose the script for the small phone, he found it to not be in very good taste. That was when Agarwal suggested that he write one.
At that time, Prasoon was vacationing in Jaipur with Piyush. Over several glasses of beer, they cracked the idea and co-wrote the script.
Even though Piyush was working for Ogilvy, and Ericsson was Nexus Equity's client, as Prasoon explained, “We saw creative problems as great fun problems to crack, where we were working for a large company called 'Creativity,' and all agencies were only branch offices of it.
"As men, we have always imagined sitting across a gorgeous woman and striking up a conversation. So we came up with this fun story about a middle aged man who thinks that a beautiful woman is talking to him, when she’s actually talking to someone else on her compact mobile phone, which is hidden by her hair.”
Agarwal presented the script to the client, who loved it, and gave it the go-ahead.
The making of the ad
Prasoon screen-tested actor Kamal Chopra for the middle-aged man’s role, and for the woman’s role, who had to be between 30 and 35, he tested Kavita Kapoor. Kapoor was recommended by Mahesh Mathai, Founder, Highlight Films, who had produced a De Beers campaign starring Kapoor.
The shooting commenced at Mukesh Mills, in Mumbai. The film was shot by Barun Mukherjee, and the music was by Louis Banks.
The restaurant, where the story was set, was given a Mediterranean touch by the film’s producer, Srila Chatterjee.
As one can see in the film, Chopra’s face falls when Kapoor mistakes him to be the waiter and places her order, but he manages to beat a dignified retreat. The shot lasted seven seconds, which, as per Prasoon Pandey, is very long. To highlight that Chopra’s heart broke, a glass was shattered in the background.
High recall
Doordarshan won the Indian telecast rights for the 1996 Cricket World Cup. The commercial aired just once every day during the World Cup. The film was well-received, critically acclaimed, and helped grow the sales of Ericsson mobile phones.
Like others, the Cannes jury too found the ending unexpected, and enjoyed the ad, recalled Prasoon.
One of the media portals had conducted a survey on the ads with the highest recall among those telecast during the 1996 World Cup. Ericsson topped the list.
“It goes to show that if you invest in a good idea, one doesn’t have to telecast it 35 times. One can telecast just 10 times and come out stronger than going with a commercial with a half-baked idea, and then just plastering it,” said Prasoon Pandey
Praising the performances, Prasoon said, “Kapoor was brilliant and natural. One does not suspect that she's talking on the phone till she pulls it out. But when she does pull it out, it does not look like she was deliberately fooling us. It all sits very naturally. She was brilliant.”
How did it change fortune?
As the commercial was receiving love and recognition for its storyline and stupendous cast performance, post the release, Kapoor sat at home for eight and a half months.
In a conversation with Storyboard18, Kapoor said, “A lot were unaware that I was an Indian model. I think it was a time when there was a transition where people were not too sure if they wanted an Indian look or a Western look. I was getting work in the advertising field, but there was not that much work coming from the industry because that's where I really wanted to get a foothold.”
"Since the commercial tasted popularity from all the fronts, everybody thought that I started working the next day post its release, which is not true," added Kapoor.
Post the Ericsson commercial, Kapoor was seen in Daewoo Cielo car ad. She was also seen in Kinetic Honda, Asian Paints, Dhara, Kelvinator refrigerator ads, and did a lot of other international work too.
Why did the ad stand out?
Even though more than two decades have passed since it was released, the ad is still fresh in people’s minds. Why?
“I think it stood out for its cleverness. It was unexpected, it was surprising, and it was endearing. That is what we should always do with our advertising. We need to respect our audience, that we are interrupting their entertainment time with our product message. If we respect them, then we need to deliver it, not as a product message, but in a surprising and an endearing way,’’ said the ad filmmaker.
