Love has smitten me just one more time,
Lets talk my lady; lets talk and dine.
Lets talk my lady while the stars shine bright,
Lets talk through the cold chilly night.
Lets talk my lady when bodily apart,
Lets talk, lets talk….let our souls never depart.

Mr. LOVE has just smitten these two devoted souls, Madhavan and Vidya. And the result? Though Madhavan is absolutely ready with his packed bags to leave for the tour, it seems the elevator doors just refuse to close. His lady love is standing before him, her searching eyes desiring to talk more; her whispering lips wanting to express more. He doesn’t want to leave her back home….he doesn’t want distance to stop this beautiful conversation…he is scared.

But Vidya is not. She knows her conversation with her love is eternal. She knows no distance can stop her from sharing those soft whispers. Why? Because she can call up her one and only love “ten times a day”, maybe “fifty times a day”, and share all her love-mystified details and summaries through those softened murmurs over the phone. After all it cost just one rupee for all incoming calls when you have an Airtel connection.

Review: Ask any adman and he will tell you that if you want to register your product in the memory card of your target audience within the first five seconds of the ad (TVC), the TVC will need to highlight a very strong emotional brand proposition. And Ad Pick believes that when it comes to Airtel’s ads, the hit upon the target audience with that “emo-quotient” of the brand is just quite right.

Through this new TVC, Airtel wanted to announce its latest one rupee offer that is for any incoming call when the user is on roaming. Well, Ad Pick believes that Rediffusion DYR, the creators of this ad, has done a fantastic job. The target hit rate of the ad is quite a happy score.

With this ad, Airtel continues to produce the best advertising campaigns of our times. Nowhere in their ads do we get to hear inscrutable jargon of funky technicalities. It’s about emotions and our basic desires and how the technology can bring it to us. Technology, in the Airtel world, is thus viewed as the means to the end and not the end itself.

No fire breathing stands, no funny lines – its what-you-see-is-what-you-get. After all, in a world that’s all about people connecting and sharing information, why say no to the bonds of love?

Three cheers to Airtel. Three cheers to those love-smitten whispering murmurs.

By the way, this ad also somehow keeps reminding Ad Pick of John Denver. Remember that good old song….

“All my bags are packed I'm ready to go
I'm standin' here outside your door
I hate to wake you up to say goodbye…”
Great work!!!

Agency: Rediffusion DYR
Production house: Foot Candles
Running time: 53 seconds
ITV rating: * * * * *