A friend sent me a famous Koli song and that brought back a pleasant memory.
Years ago JRD TATA had created history again by flying solo to repeat his historic flight .
I had written a AMUL BUTTER hoarding that showed JRD flying like superman in the cape and superman pose and the Amul butter babies dressed like Parsee kids looking up in amazement and the line was ...
ITS A BIRD, ITS A PLANE..NO ITS AAPRO SUPERMAN.
UT'TATA'RLY BUT'TATA'RLY DELICIOUS.
AMUL
I got a call from Mr Tatas office asking for a print ( I sent him three ).
And then we got a strange call .from the marketing director of Garware nylons ,asking for the name of the person who wrote that hoarding.
Having been told ,I received a huge cake in the evening with a handwritten note by mr Garware saying , ' hats off to your creativity.that line made my day .this is a token of my appreciation.'
I wrote back saying that cake wasn't necessary,just that line in appreciation was more than enough .and sent him a print of the hoarding .
Next day again I got a call from their office asking if I would be interested in handling their advertising. we ,of course, jumped at it . went and took a brief for their nylon fishing nets.
It was a new challenge because we had never handled this product category .the campaign was to be in Marathi.
I went walking in the Koli settlements and observed how they talked , got a list of Koli Marathi books , read and re read them and created a four ad campaign. I don't remember all the ads ,but sort of remember one.
It showed an old , blushing mother in law ( watched fondly from the back by her husband ) telling her young daughter in law ,
" Ani te larat malaa matsyagandha Rani mhanle ki Mee lajena choor whayche. " ( When HE romantically called me matsyagandha Rani ,I use to blush and blush )
The copy went on to say that * when I got married ,we didn't have too much money but my husband had confidence and faith in Garware nets. ....and how he worked hard and how he got me new gold necklace for Diwali ...etc '
It ended on a baseline
GARWARE NYLON NETS
KOLYACHYA MANGATA EVDHI MAJBOOT AND KOLNISARKHI LAVCHIC .( Strong like a Koli's wrist ,and supple like a koleen.)
That campaign won every award in its category.
Amul butter to fishing nets.. it was so much fun all the way.
