Yella Ok Cool Drink Yaake

"It all began when UB came to us to build a brand image for their product UB Export beer. Luckily our client was very open and with a radio spot and a press advertisement, they recognized the value in the idea and wanted to build the concept on a bigger scale. In fact it has been one of those few campaigns where nothing changed from the beginning stage to the end. "

"When we started out with the first ‘Yaake cool drink campaign' everyone from the client's side and the advertising agency's side were clear with the proposition that we would not be pushing the product just on it's price factor although it was priced at just Rs.17. We wanted the brand image to be very unconventional yet very cool.  So we had to have some kind of personality for the "unconventional yet cool" tag for UB export brand image. After that the whole project just fell into place."

"Today this unconventional image has translated into every single ‘Yaake' format of ad campaign. Take the example from our print campaign which was in the form of a comic strip. It was actually the most difficult medium to be different. The idea here was to have situations that were trying and would scare normal people off and but would be with ok with Upendra as long he didn't have to consume cool drinks. We were thinking of how we could capture this notion in print and then we hit upon an idea of having a comic strip. So then we got a cartoonist called Balraj who is a freelance cartoonist for Deccan Herald and some other newspapers to work on this project. We worked on 12 different situations and perhaps spent more time on the print campaign than anything else. These strips are unlike any other regular print ads that you see in
the media nowadays. The same unconventional theme translates with the radio and film campaign. "

"The radio script was created by our Creative Director Rajesh Ramaswamy and was produced by Raghupati Dixit of Antaragini. Considering they were Kannadigas it didn't take a long time to get the idea going. Here again we took care not to distort the idea by making a spoof or by using a mix of Kannada and English. It's very easy to add value or distort a concept, but Raghupati Dixit was very sensitive to the theme and retained it in its original form. That way we maintained the rawness and the spirit of the idea."

"The idea for the film campaign came when we started the campaign where we just advertised by using shop fronts and some press. But even with that limited media exposure it developed attention where everyone started asking for UB export beer in pubs and bars. That's when we all decided to take this project forward by using the visual media and the first stage was questioning the cool drinks and the mediocrity."

"Here again we wanted to use unconventionality without confining it to any particular image. We now though only if we had some actor who could carry this unconventional image, things would get fixed. We didn't have to look around much as the personality of Upendra was in synch with the image we wanted for the beer."

"We started out by watching many Upendra films to get a feel of his style and to understand how to get across the idea. While watching these movies we worked on how the concept would take shape right from the costume to the hair style where everything was well researched. Everything including the background score, the entrance and the style of Upendra was planned in advance. The film was so much fun to shoot that none of us felt any stress during the campaign even though we were hard-pressed for time and had dead lines. The whole shoot was very interesting since the whole team including Upendra was so engrossed in the project. Upendra tried different technique of getting the shots and nothing was too over the top here since the entire image was on a different platform. In fact later while the dubbing for the advertisement was taking place he modulated his voice to sound good. He took so much interest in this project that he did the dubbing himself and even called his wife and friends to the studio and played them the audio.

"Being a director himself he gave us many inputs and was the first person to tell us this campaign would be a huge success. In fact, when he got the script he immediately said that it would be a hit with the masses. He should know best since he has had so many hits and knows the masses well. That way we knew we were on the right track."

 "Both Raghupati Dixit the radio producer and Manoj Pillai our film director were equally enthusiastic about this project. The shoot took about three days after which we took another week for the recording and editing. The film was shot in Bangalore while the edit and recording happened in Mumbai and Chennai, respectively. We wanted the best available talent from all over. The entire film campaign was wrapped in ten days along with the print campaign, where as the radio campaign took a month .The campaign started by the end of January and was over by the beginning of March".

"Although the brand is called UB Export, it is available only in Karnataka. So if we wanted the Kannadigas to appreciate the advertisement we needed people who would speak their language and knew the all the nuances. So we made it very local and made sure the focus was very single minded"

"The reaction of the people was fantastic. For example on the Radio city anniversary when they invited Upendra for an interview they made him repeat all the Yaake dialogues because they liked it so much. Even all radio spots were played back to back on public demand. Another incident was the CET controversy where a protest was organized against the CET head Jallappa. The banner outside read, "Yella ok, Jallappa Yaake?"

"There are also many SMS jokes floating around and many TV anchors on local channels keep repeating it. You'll see it on many autos rickshaws although the meaning may be understood by none except the auto drivers. Even Upendra has told us he is generally requested to repeat the Yaake dialogues along with his other film dialogues. The ‘Yaake' campaign has also been on India Today and it's very rare that an advertisement dialogue gets so much publicity.  That way our primary goal was achieved ... the message managed to work its way into the daily lingo".

Client: UB Marketing team, Bangalore

Ad Agency: J.W Thompson team, B'lore

Radio Producer: Raghupati Dixit

Filmmaker: Manoj Pillai /Thinkpot

Photographer: Sheetal Jain

Illustrator: Balraj              

Issue BG47 Feb05