Storyboard18 | Hamara Rahul Bajaj: It takes big men to recognize big ideas

Rahul Bajaj at his Pune office.

It was 1988, Bajaj Auto was the first big client that we handled, Prashant Godbole and I – it was a mighty account, and India’s No.1 two-wheeler brand.

I was just two years in the ad business, Prashant had been in the business a shade longer, but was already a whiz visualizer of sorts, our mentor/boss Kersey Katrak had teamed us up, as a copy-art duo - he had in turn been asked by Alyque Padamsee, to be National Creative Director of Lintas India - so there we were on the 15th floor of Express Towers brainstorming on the brand.

The Bajaj portfolio was immense and interesting, a two-wheeler for every price segment; at one end of the spectrum were the scooters – the Chetak and the Pushpak, the M80 – and a mini bike occupied the centre,  and the top end was the Kawasaki RTZ motorcycle.

Each of these brands had a specific share of the market, a specific price point, and therefore each posed a unique creative ‘problem’ to us, the creative team.

The Bajaj scooter, the Chetak, was solid, workmanlike, so to speak. The competition was chipping away at the sales, especially Kinetic Honda had produced a zippy new machine, appealing to the young in its aesthetic.

“We have to create a benefit, not made in the factory,” Kersy told Prashant and me, “convert a perceived weakness, its looks, into a strength.”

Chevrolet, was faced with the smaller Japanese cars invading the US, their ad campaign responded with ‘The Heartbeat of America”, and we needed a similar answer to the younger pretenders – we created ‘Hamara Bajaj’, playing on the India’s sense of nationalism, trust over technology.

Now we had to ‘sell’ the campaign to Rahul Bajaj.

We went up to Pune.

The Bajaj Auto marketing team were a bit flummoxed by the Hamara Bajaj campaign – they were quite conditioned to respond to benefit-driven creatives, the ‘we have a better suspension and a wider wheel base than our competitor’ type of ad, so this was an intimidating idea to digest, let alone commit the back pages of India Today, and expensive air-time on Doordarshan.

“I would like you to present directly to Mr Bajaj”, the head of marketing, said to us.

I could sense that he was uncertain to ‘buy’ it…out-of-the-box creative ideas tend to spook marketing teams - it takes big men to recognize big ideas.

Ishan Raina (who headed account management on Bajaj Auto), Prashant and I went to meet the big man, armed with press ads and a TV idea with Jaikrit Rawat-penned lyrics (‘Buland Bharat Ki Buland Tasveer’), and a Louiz Banks rough soundtrack.

Mr Bajaj welcomed us with a lazy flamboyance, he carried his stature easily.

It was the first time we’d met an industrialist not full of “I’. He listened intently, Ishan laid out the strategy, and then Prashant and I attempted to sell our creative wares - a Parsi gent fastidiously polishing his scooter, and a young hero combing his hair in the mirror, among other snippets of the Bajaj scooter and its place in Indian transportation.

“Mr Bajaj, the TV ad shows your scooter, but doesn’t sell its features, but focuses on it being a favourite of Indians all over.”

Mr Bajaj had that ‘x’ factor that all ad agencies look for. He laid the foundation for a philosophy that believed, we should be trusted to do ‘their thing’ without interference - ‘we know our two wheelers, you know your trade, we’ve hired you to ply you trade, so let’s trust you to do your job’.

“Ishan, if you and your Lintas colleagues feel this campaign will work , lets proceed,” he said.

We came back to Bombay triumphant.

Rahul Bajaj had a sense of humour too – at a later stage, Alyque Padamsee requested Rahul Bajaj, “Rahul, we feel you need to double your advertising budget for us to realistically make a difference.”

The chairman of Bajaj Auto answered, “If I double my ad budget, can you guarantee you’ll double my sales?”

The Hamara Bajaj TV commercial won the hearts of the Indian consumer, it also won the Best TV ad at the 1989 Advertising Club Awards. And sales sky rocketed.

Six months later we were back at Mr Bajaj’s door, with a campaign for the Kawasaki Bajaj RTZ. Prashant, thinking out-of-the-box, came up with the idea of a bike transforming into a robotic cheetah. Mr Bajaj agreed this would resonate with young speed-loving bikers.

A year later, we were asked to helm a live launch of another high-end Bajaj bike – this truly gave us a chance to work first-hand with the great man.

Rahul Bajaj had swag without swagger, but for a man whose contemporaries had hubris, he had humility, he carried his ‘station’ with a stateliness.

There were many lessons that we learnt at the feet of this account, learnings that the two of us, Prashant and I, took away and have held us in good stead throughout our careers.

Creative people should, as much as possible, present their own work. Clients enjoy meeting the people who create their ads, so they can brief and buy first-hand.

Also give the consumer an emotional benefit, not a manufacturer’s statement, particularly for a consumer durable.

Consumers remember brand emotions.

So it was a tremendous sense of loss that Prashant and I felt at the great man’s passing.

He really put the ‘hamara’ into Bajaj.

Rest well, Sir.