Google Shopping Turns Into a Magical Mela for Diwali
To highlight its exceptional convenience and diverse offerings, Google Shopping’s Diwali campaign sees the platform transform into a vibrant mela (festival). Starring Indian actress, Farida Jalal, the spot sees a grandmother and granddaughter explore all that the mela has to offer in order to find the perfect juttis (shoes) for a memorable Diwali gift. As they wander, they make use of Google Shopping’s various features from a price slider and personalised suggestions to a range of filters to land on the product they were looking for.
In this interview, Lowe Lintas president (creative), Vasudha Misra, speaks with LBB’s Sunna Coleman to take us behind the scenes, sharing their commitment to using minimal CG, how they incorporated the joy of the mela into Google Shopping and the lessons learned from Farida.
LBB> Tell us about how the idea of turning a Google Shopping experience into a Diwali carnival was formed.
Vasudha> Google Shopping is all about abundance, the serendipity of finding something just right and the joy that comes with it. Quite like the experience of going to a Diwali mela. And then, all we had to do was make the mela symbolic of Google Shopping. We did this visually with the look and style of the tabs on the platform, the price slider, the customisation to filter/refine the search – and more importantly, by capturing the common human emotion of finding something truly special and connecting with your loved ones.
LBB> How did you use storytelling in the ad to smoothly convey all the features of Google Shopping in an easy to understand way?
Vasudha> Somehow, the Google Shopping consumer journey and the visual metaphor that we were using organically came together in a very surprising way. At no point did we feel that we had to stretch the device in an unnatural manner to explain anything.
LBB> The spot features prominent Indian actress Farida Jalal. What was it like collaborating with her? Any interesting and fun anecdotes to share?
Vasudha> Farida ji can teach us all a lesson or two about professionalism and dedication. She was just so into the entire process with her vivacious personality, spontaneous attitude and high energy.
LBB> Tell us about the creative decisions behind the look and feel of the advert. What emotions were you trying to convey?
Vasudha> We wanted this mela to be a place of joy and serendipity. And so, when we were writing it, we all drew inspiration from the melas that had given us joy. We put those moments into the script and into our look-feel boards. Our director, [Naruttam] Achowe (Chalk&Cheese) did the rest. He even created a miniature set with 300 3D printed juttis (shoes) to be part of the miniature set.
LBB> What was the most difficult part of this project?
Vasudha> The most difficult part was executing the film with minimal CG. We had a timeline to keep and a magical quality to convey in that sense of serendipitous joy. We couldn’t compromise on that. So we asked Achowe if it was possible to execute most of it live. He took that on as a challenge and then his imagination really got to work.
LBB> How do you feel about the finished ad?
Vasudha> Firstly, I feel relieved. Relieved because things with camera trickery and human emotions can go terribly wrong. However, here, everything balanced each other out magically. And secondly, I feel darn proud that we have pulled this off.
LBB> What is your personal highlight from working on this project?
Vasudha> To see the sets. Our director, Achowe, and his wonderful team created something out of this world. Both a real-life set as well as an identical miniature set were created. Both of them mimicked each other to the T. The miniature set had 3D printed juttis and a motorised ferris wheel as well as a toy train! Creatively, it was so thrilling and inspiring to see all this at play.
