Diesel Knee.J

Objective: To come up with an in-store promotion idea to run along with the ‘Sex sells. Unfortunately we sell jeans’ campaign to help increase sales.

Solution: We created the Knee.J, a spoof sex toy of sorts that would be given away at the store for every customer that ran a bill above $ 150. The product was displayed and people were informed through posters and e-mailers.

It was an instant success. The store saw a great increase in walk-ins with many queries for the Knee.J. The product got so much publicity, it was taken to all the stores in the country. Last we hear, customers were spotted kneeling at the store.

Credits:

Creative Director – Praveen Das / Kartik Iyer

Art Director – Praveen Das / Pradeep Kumar

Copywriter – Sanaa Abdussamad

Illustrator – Rishidev

Studio Head – Ramakrishna R

Account Manager – Ravi Bhat

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Rajesh goes back to advertising. Happy goes back to school.

Last week, we had another reason to take a break from work, football and recession, and just play like kids again. A farewell party for Rajesh. Now when all of us had thought bubbles about ol’ monk, potato chips and chicken, Praveen suggested we have a costume party. And promptly Kartik suggested a theme of fantasies: Back to School. We had just about half a day to get our stuff together, and man, did we get our act together the next morning! Sharat’s family got blacklisted by the apartment committee. Auto drivers fought to give Bhavna a ride. Jayan’s face looked like skinned chicken. Praveen got stopped by traffic cops. And our neighbours kept their kids indoors. None of us could wait for the evening. We all sat at the edge of our seats like we were all forbidden our bathroom breaks. Rishi and Sanaa flew paper planes. Loki kept polishing his shoes. And Jayan fought with Pradeep over a Lollipop. For those wondering where the man of the hour was, we are still not sure where he went. Rajesh went missing during lunch and showed up 4 hours later – high-spirited and mad. He hugged the innocence out of every school kid and brought the Happy house down with his ridiculous amount of cheer. And then the bell rang. All the kids lined up for the class photo. Rajesh gave not one, but a hundred speeches – about Happy, about Kartik, about Praveen, about Ogilvy, about Iyer and Das at Happy. Overwhelmed from all the nursery rhymes dedicated to him, Rajesh got up on a chair, stood tall and sang the English alphabet song and almost got it right. No one knows whose bright idea it was to have an arm wrestling tournament at 11 at night. But in 15 seconds we were all on our knees, wrestling it out for the top prize: Respect. Loki beat a football star. Sharat let Sanaa win. Kartik forfeited. And Ram remained the undefeated arm wrestling champion, giving him enough reason to do what he loves best – dancing. All of us joined him indoors to save the neighbours from further damage. Praveen danced with the wall clock. Rajesh bumped into everyone. Pradeep rocked it with Jayan, forgetting the Lollipop incident. Some things just never get old at Happy. Whatever said and done, Rajesh will leave a void at Happy. Of roadside noodles, bad jokes, trekking stories and the general (infectious) enthusiasm. We wish him all the very best for his next big journey at McCann-Erickson and may he always be happy.

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Happy News!

Whoever said that Thursdays are boring, clearly didn’t write the script for us Happy folks. A pleasant surprise awaited us this morning when we stepped into our office.

Bhavna’s prayers were answered. Rajesh’s hopes had come true. The world of ideas had a reason to celebrate. Happy had made it into the D&AD 2009 shortlist!

Our ‘Skinny Jeans’ entry in the ‘Packaging Design’ category was selected to appear in D&AD’s 2009 Annual. And this feat feels even more remarkable because only 7% of the entries were selected to appear in the annual this year. To get our own creation chosen by the prestigious D&AD jury as a definitive record of creativity for the year 2008 is an unbelievable high for us.

So kudos to Kartik, Praveen and Ram for giving us this chance to celebrate with them.
Even though this validates all our efforts over the last year, it also drives us to push ourselves more, break more barriers and search harder for that elusive perfection, all within ourselves.

Meanwhile, let’s bring out the ready-mix. Vimal!!!!!!!!!!!!

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Happy hours.

Food takes up a hallow spot in the list of priorities for the Happy folk.

We don’t think of food as a mere nutrition provider; forget bare necessity. We elevate it to a status of a religion. It brings us together, binds us together and pretty much gives us the drive to kick the football around in our room. The way to a man’s heart might be through his stomach, but for us the heart resides in our stomach. We clutch our stomach when we have a heart ache, ala Das.

The show of camaraderie on our Round Happy Table would put King Arthur’s to shame. We, of the Order of the Bulging Waistline, may not be the quickest to rescue a damsel in distress but we would definitely be the quickest in recommending the best beef fry joint for her!

Anthony Bourdain need not travel the world to taste the different cuisines of the world. He just need to come to one of our lunch sittings. From thatte idlies to thai green chicken curry, from roadside egg pepper noodles to fish biryanis, there are very few things that has given the Round Happy Table a miss. And if the range was not enough, we mix ‘n match with our food to come up with new cuisines like Chindian, Malayatinental, Philipinadu to name a few.

The session normally begins to Jayan’s bellows or to the roar of Ram’s stomach. Our lunches are anything but a sub-100 decibel affair. It’s a melting pot of anecdotes, jokes, impromptu mimicry, novel business proposals (like Rajesh’s Gourmet Curd rice business) and much more. We also do think up the days to observe, like ‘Shouting Day’ for example, as Bhavna unfortunately found out. Deep discussions about the shortcomings of chicken cooked with skin are held here. Followed by impromptu decisions to have ice-creams of a radio active color.

Food is not shared here; it is plundered off other’s plates and lunch boxes. Everything is fair in Food and War. The Round Happy Table. It’s the closest we have for a war room and we sure do love it. The fact that it’s always been made sure that everyone has lunch together everyday adds to the charm. It gives us a chance to comment on the day gone by and ask other’s opinions on the asinine things one had to endure.

The Round Happy Table is one of the bedrocks we have in our office. It has witnessed Karthik’s rise from an Easy to Medium level in Guitar-Hero. It lent firm support while we wrapped and sent off all our entries to the One Show, D&AD and Goafest. And saw quietly while we polished off many an Old Monk.

Everyone and anyone is welcome to the Round Happy Table. Even the aunty next door – who’s in love with Ram.

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Sanaa’s wedding invite – A Viral Success

A couple of weeks ago Sanaa, Rishi and Sharat created her unofficial wedding invite. Primarily created for few of her closest friends in Bangalore to beat the ‘straightness’ of her formal wedding card. The ‘Told Mum’ card created in a replica form of the iconic old monk rum bottle was found on our desks one morning. Our reaction to it was instant. Everyone burst out laughing the first time they saw it. To the eavesdropping neighbour the laughs might have sounded like a series of explosions moving around the floors of the Happy office. The same day Sanaa also forwarded the picture of the same invite to friends living across the globe, so they could also be let in on the fun. What happened after that has been an even more amazing story. The invite started to make its rounds among the ‘cool’ mallus across the world. Sanaa started getting calls from lads in the UK and Dubai asking if they could come for the party. But the biggest one of all happened this morning. The invite actually made it back to me from a cousin living in Dubai. It was part of a chain mail that included more than a 1000 e-mail ids. And all of them had only one this to say – Hilarious! In this age of viral communications, Sanaa has actually created a viral piece that is a true exhibit of what a Viral piece should be – fun, involving, engaging and most of all forward worthy.  And why did she do it? Just for kicks. Will a brand ever have the guts to do that? Congratulations Sanaa, you have been awarded with Shamim for your efforts. Enjoy your new life. And your old monk.

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Can a joke ever be bad?

After a long day of making co-workers laugh with extremely bad jokes, our very own Kung-fu Pandan (Praady aka Pradeep Kumar) decided to make things interesting and start a game where every bad joke scores a point. Thereby announcing an in-house competition for all Happy people to do their worst, and crack jokes so bad that an ostrich will bury its head for life.

That declared the end of a period where people talked sensibly. One week into the competition, and it looks like we’ll need a bigger score board. As Praddy takes the lead with his on-the-spot quips, Rajesh and Jay K aren’t too far behind. Thanks to the BBQ party on Thursday (and thanks to Old Monk), almost everyone scored a point. Rumour goes that a certain someone stays up all night – reading roadside joke books to get ‘inspired’ and score the maximum!

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We cooked up a happy time, and how.

Oh what a night! The Happy BBQ started at 6pm as planned. Jayan, Sharat and Rajesh organised everything in one swift move to the wine store (for old monk)  and the local bakery (for chips). Driver gopi had already organised the marinated meat and bar-be-cue stands. He also organised the coal and the kerosene. The sun hadn’t set yet and everyone was out at the sky lound (have a large balcony and thats what we call it). Every one worked diligently to set up the party so the already arrived guests (us!!) would not have to wait any longer. Sanaa and bhavna worked on thawing the meat (microwave voila!), all the boys tried their hand at getting the fire going. Rajesh poured the coal from the plastic bag, jayan poured the kerosene, praveen lit the fire, pradeep tore papers and threw them into the fire, praveen and kartik fanned the coal,  rishi took photographs, sharat poked the coal with the skewer – and it just wasn’t working. In comes magician gopi with some ‘ready to catch fire’ pieces of wood. So we started the whole process again. Thankfully it worked. In less than an hour all the coal was red and ready to go. By then ofcourse parts of the team had slowly moved to the bar and drinks were being made. Leaving the fire unattended for a few minutes we all gathered to say cheers and wish Rishi and Sanaa the very best. “Cheers”. That was the last sensible thing that all of us heard. What happened after that is just a series of hazy images and lout like laughter. At some point Rishi was violated with his birthday cake. More lout like laughter. And then the dancing started… *Blip*.

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