Srikant interviews for a job, ahead of the launch of 'The Family Man 2'

(screen grab)

With just two days to go for the launch of The Family Man Season 2, the show's advertising is picking up pace.

In season 1, we saw Srikant Tiwari (Manoj Bajpayee) cheat death in his job as an intelligence officer of the Threat Analysis and Surveillance Cell (TASC). In season 2, it seems from the trailer, we will see him trying to work in a regular office - away from all the action, yet aching to be part of it.

The advertising ahead of the show takes off from this premise. In an age of work-from-home, Srikant has lined up video interviews with the top bosses of four companies: Ritesh Agarwal of hospitality company OYO; Kabeer Biswas of delivery services company DUNZO; Manu Jain of phone and wearable tech firm Xiaomi; and Ankur Warikoo of e-commerce company Nearbuy. (It is unclear at this time whether these four companies are sponsors or have product placement deals with the show.)

Released one by one over 5 hours on June 2, the "interviews" give a peek into the new season.

For example, during one interview, we see Srikant quickly, discreetly look up the meaning of "tandem" in the middle of the conversation - something he's seen doing in the trailer too where he looks up the meaning of "sham" when wife Rajalekshmi Chandran (Samantha Akkineni) says their marriage is a sham.

With each interview, Manoj Bajpayee stays in character as Srikant - for example, he doesn't let on if he doesn't know something, he embellishes freely and improvises unabashedly. (In one interview where the interviewer warns him he'd have to work at break neck speed, he breaks into a list of all the body parts he's broken in his previous job without divulging the nature of his work.)

Each time Srikant is offered a job, though, he finds some reason to turn it down: once because he mishears that the job is in Lonavala (it's in Lokhandwala, but his Internet starts buffering at just the right time); once because he gets a message from an old colleague about a new mission in Chennai, and tells the company founder to get in touch with him a week later; and once because he baulks at the idea of a background check into his previous role.

During the "interviews", Srikant strikes a balance between schmoozing and hardselling his qualities - the tone of the interviews is lighthearted and fun.

Each interview reveals a little something about the story, too - about the plot, places and people. This is obviously one of the hallmarks of good advertising - context.

The interviews also draw on the current time - video-calls in the age of work from home, buffering videos and the resulting miscommunication - but they do so selectively. For example, there is no attempt to tie back to the fact that millions of people find themselves out of jobs and "Open to Work" stickers on LinkedIn have become a painfully common sight.

Fans of the show (and advertising in general) may remember that The Family Man had launched an Internet-based campaign ahead of season 1, too. There, Bajpayee had given fans two tasks to earn the secret url for a trailer of the show. Tens of thousands completed the tasks to watch the trailer on YouTube.