Dance Like No One Is Watching!

Sometime in ‘93, Piyush Pandey was rushing from Hawaii to Mumbai, cutting short his holiday. His MD, Ranjan Kapur had just called – Cadbury’s was quiet unhappy with O&M’s work on Dairy Milk and had opened up a fresh pitch. O&M was on the verge of losing the account.

Cadbury’s was desperate to grow their stagnant chocolate category. One idea was to get adults to eat chocolates.

The two Pandey brothers were on a holiday in the US. Both were doing stellar work in advertising already - Piyush was the creative genius and Prasoon was a top ad film maker.

They had a great time at Disney and were gloating about how they did all the fearful rides when an old uncle in his 70’s stunned them. He had done those rides just a few weeks ago to test if his heart would hold up after an angio!

Later, at a toy shop, they were amused to see an 80 year old couple crawling under the table while chasing a toy car.

Piyush couldn’t believe that these two images would now become the basis for the new Cadbury’s campaign. When he landed, his ideas were sorted and the jingle scripted on his boarding card.

When ‘Asli swad zindagi ka’ broke, it gave every adult a guilt free reason to indulge the child within ourselves with Dairy Milk.

It was the second film that did the real magic. Piyush scripted a cricket story and got Shankar Mahadevan to sing the famous jingle.

But it was the girl and her dance that stole the nation’s heart. Shimona Rashi danced on the cricket field like no one was watching. Like an adult who set her child free. In one single take.  

Source:

Recounted the story Piyush Pandey’s Pandeymonium, Penguin Random House India, 2015.