Breaking Hearts and Records: Mahindra’s Electrifying Love Story
Love at first sight. Whether you believe in it or not, it is said that when you lay eyes on Mahindra’s latest Electric Origin SUVs, the BE 6 and XEV 9e, you are overcome with excitement. With ultimate sophistication and electrifying speed, these cars are designed to make you fall in love with the future of electric mobility.
To bring this love story to life, the Indian car manufacturer turned to FCB Interface to come up with a cinematic spot full of drama, passion and adrenaline. Pratap Bose, chief design and creative officer at Mahindra Group says, “Working with the FCB team on our Electric Origin BEV TV campaign was nothing short of magic. The team understood where we were coming from, but took the campaign to another level. The creative thinking and the stunning execution of the films is a testament to the outstanding abilities that FCB brought to the table. The campaign was critical in establishing both our products in potential customer mind space, which culminated in record bookings for the vehicles on opening day. It has been a pleasure and privilege to work with FCB.”
In this interview, FCB India’s national creative director and head of design, Anusheela Saha, takes us behind the scenes to reveal how this successful film came together.
LBB> Tell us about the love story idea behind the spot. What challenge did the brand come to you with and why was this the perfect fit?
Anusheela> Our core idea was always love! Because that’s what one feels when they see the BE 6 or the 9e. Gobsmacked by their looks, their performance, their luxury quotient. A love story was always on the charts.
The biggest challenge was that we chose not to mention that these were EV. Nowhere does the term EV make an appearance other than the end logo. But we wanted that. We wanted EV to be a part of the journey of falling in love with the car.
LBB> What were the key steps in bringing the concept to life? And how did the core idea evolve during the creative and production process?
Anusheela> Initially we wanted to make two films – two separate love stories – each revolving around the protagonist and their cars. The idea of making a third film came upon us with the greed of seeing both these beauties together! They show how different they are and how well they complement each other. That’s when we thought of converging the two stories in a third film and therefore a connected love story. This also meant we needed to have a cast who looked good together. So, we went pretty much back to the drawing board on that.
LBB> What inspirations were used as references for the spot?
Anusheela> I always wanted a woman protagonist for an SUV film, and I visualised her driving the car at night and had a tad bit of a fantasy of making her whistle. I mean, how many times have you seen a woman whistle a song on screen, other than maybe Daryl Hannah’s entry in Kill Bill? But most importantly, I had this vision of the famous director Sofia Coppola and wanted the protagonist who drives the BE 6 (the edgier looking car) to be her.
The man driving the XUV 9e was always the understated suave guy, pretty much like the car. Like a modern-day Yves Saint Laurent – driving around. In fact, the casting was pretty much inspired by Yves Saint Laurent and Sofia Coppola’s 1985 New Year’s Eve photograph.
LBB> The music really adds to the Bollywood-style love story theme. What were the key elements that you wanted when deciding on the music?
Anusheela> The music is not a typical love song. Or rather, is not the usual sweet gentle love song. It’s a passionate love song that gives a surge to your adrenaline – pretty much how you feel when you drive the cars. And having test-driven them before filming – I was certain we needed something strong and adrenaline-gushing. We experimented with quite a few songs – both English and Bollywood. But nothing captured the feeling of driving these beauties – more than Biddu’s ‘Dil Bole Boom Boom’.
LBB> What were some of the creative and strategic challenges you needed to overcome during this project?
Anusheela> Now that I think of it, we were being brave. A little too brave, launching EV cars without really mentioning the word EV in our ads. We expected (and hoped) consumers would fall in love with cars and eventually find out they are EVs. I think that confidence also came from how gorgeous the cars look!
Creatively the only challenge was a night and day schedule in Spain. We would shoot the BE 6 all night and then move to the 9E during the day. Catching precious four hours of sleep. Brendan Vaughan, our director, was very clear that he would shoot everything and nothing would be done on CG! No green screen, no special effects. Just the good old-school way shooting everything. Sushi, lots of Americanos and good full bodied Spanish omelette helped us sail through these tough times!
LBB> What have you personally loved most about working on this campaign?
Anusheela> The people who I worked with were the most loved part about this campaign. Especially getting to learn from and work with Pratap Bose, who designed these cars. He accompanied us at the shoot, telling us the best angles to shoot the cars in and also cracking the best jokes!
A big shout out to team Mahindra, Rajesh Jejurikar, Veejay Nakra, Reeti Nageshri and Salil. We lived this launch together – we were never client and agency, we are team EV.
LBB> Any last comments?
Anusheela> I think there are two precious things on earth: love and intelligence. And the wordsmithing of Udayan Chakravarty ensured that the baseline ‘Unlimit Love’ carries them both well. ‘Unlimit’ stems from the infinity logo of Mahindra EVs and finds its rightful place
next to ‘Love’ to complete the story.
