Ajab Gazab Ki Kahani

The Ogilvy Mumbai team that created this campaign includes:

Creative Team:

Executive Chairman & Creative Director (South Asia): Piyush Pandey

National Creative Director: Abhijit Avasthi

Creative Director: Pradyumna Chauhan (Copy)

Senior Creative Director: Mahesh Gharat (Art)

Client Servicing:

Vice President: Ajay Menon

Senior Account Executive: Rohit Sharma

Production House:

Foot Candles Film Pvt. Ltd

Director: Vinil Mathew

Ogilvy Mumbai created a new advertisement campaign for MP Tourism with shadow artistes from Bengal bringing Madhya Pradesh Tourism alive through their campaign “MP ajab hai, Sabse gazab hai”.

This campaign, the third in a series of hugely popular and successful campaigns done in the past, is based on the ancient art of shadowgraphy. This art form woven around an earthy and rustic musical jingle captures some of the unique and surprising facts about Madhya Pradesh. 

Like in the past, the current television commercial stays true to the fact that we Indians love our song and dance. Therefore composing a song was an obvious choice, albeit much more challenging this time. Because unlike previous efforts which showcased a multitude of offerings, this time the focus is on fewer destinations - but each one of them having amazing stories built around them. So for instance the song lines were crafted around amazing facts like the hanging of ten elephants from a hall roof to test its strength, communicate that there is a castle which with water bodies on either sides looks like a ship more than a castle and many more. Definitely these are awe-inspiring facts but equally daunting task was to turn them into short and simple song lines. The television jingle has been sung by acclaimed film and television actor, Mr.Raghuvir Yadav, who is a native of Madhya Pradesh himself.

Shadowgraphy or shadow theatre is a unique performing art which today is on the verge of going obsolete. India has a long and rich tradition of Shadow theatre. According to many scholars, this art originated in India. Reference to shadow theatre is found in the Tamil classic Shilappadikaaram. Many Western Indologists such as Pischel, Luders and Winternitz are of the opinion that the well known Sanskrit drama Mahaanaataka was originally written as a play for the shadow theatre. This art form is, thus, at least one thousand years old. It apparently went to Southeast Asia, Turkey and other places from India.

However, the Chief Minister of Madhya Pradesh Mr. Shivraj Singh Chauhan said during  the launching of the promotion campaign, that this campaign is beyond the comprehension of the common people. He agreed that artistically the campaign is accomplished, but added that the campaign is unable to focus on the nuances of M.P. Tourism. The CM appreciated the previous two campaigns and suggested that some changes should be made in this campaign. 

Volkswagen has already used similar theme in their advertisement. No complaints about comprehension was heard about this though