Life OK empathises with Har Mard Ka Dard in innovative marketing drive

‘What is going on in a woman’s mind?’ – this question has intrigued men across ages. Imagined being bestowed with the super powers to understand and answer this most crucial question! ‘Har Mard Ka Dard’, which premiered on Life OK February 14 at 8 pm and will air Monday to Friday, is a humour-laced sitcom where the male protagonist is given the power to know what woman is thinking. 

Starring Faisal Rashid and Jhinal Belani in the lead roles, the sitcom is produced by Tony and Deeya Singh of DJ’s Creative Unit and directed by Parmeet Sethi. 

Life OK has embarked on a high decibel marketing and promotional campaign to reach out to its male audiences. The channel has innovatively activated radio networks, print media, on ground activations and social media to promote the show. 

Three very distinct promos were used as part of the TV campaign. The first promo is set across three decades, citing instances of a typical husband-wife nok-jhok, where the wife feels her husband just doesn’t get her. The second promo showcases the various meanings in woman’s dictionary of the sentence ‘Okay, fine go’, and the third promo gives a glimpse of ‘Har Mard Ka Dard’s male protagonist going to a temple and pleading to a goddess with his prayers being answered. 

Meanwhile, as part of the radio campaign, Life OK and Red FM got 50 male RJs from across cities to talk about Har Mard Ka Dard. Unlike every year where the radio channel celebrates Valentine’s Day with its ardent listeners, Red FM this year gave the day of love a skip and instead got men to share their ‘Man’ Ki Baat’. The RJs spoke about their personal experiences of understanding women. They sought Vinod Khanna, the protagonist’s, help in decoding women. An interesting video with RJ Malishka, RJ Rishi Kapoor and RJ Nasar was its rounds across social media platforms in the lead-up to this radio activity. The video gave an insight into how women think and how men react to what they have to say. 

Taking the marketing innovations a notch higher, Life OK launched a rap song, titled ‘Dard-E-Rap’, which is a tribute to all men on the occasion of Valentine’s Day. The song gives an insight into various ways in which men struggle to understand women. The video provides a humorous take on how a woman’s mind works. The lyrics of the rap narrate Vinod Khanna’s life with the words, ‘No means no, yes means no and maybe ka matlab is also no’. Vinod raps on the fact that ‘there are 99 shades for the word fine, whereas okay has 100 different meanings’. 

With Life OK tilting towards male audiences, the channel was on the lookout to promote the show at touch points that are conversation starters for men, where men connect. A research carried out by the channel came out with the inference that barber shops is one of the places where men spend their time. Taking this outcome forward, the channel put up stickers on the mirrors across barber shops in Delhi, Gujarat and Punjab with the tagline: ‘Bina blade ke shave karna mumkin hai, par Aurton ko samajhna mushkil hi nahin namumkin hai’ and ‘Sar ke saare baal ginana mumkin hai, par Aurton ko samajhna mushkil hi nahin namumkin hai’. The whole idea of having stickers on the mirror was to catch the men’s attention and draw them to a conversation with other men on the concept of the show. 

This apart, Chetan Bhagat, who has interviewed over 100 women as research for his book ‘One Indian girl’ which he wrote from a women’s perspective, was roped in to launch a life size book with lead protagonist Faisal Rashid, titled ‘A Guide to Understanding Women’. Bhagat was the first man to write on the book, followed by Faisal Rashid. While men would be documenting their experiences of failing to understanding women, their counterparts can also come forth and share their views on what men must do in order to understand them better. The fourth book will be travelling across the lengths and breadths of the country to reach as many people as possible. 

Adgully spoke to Deeya Singh, Producer & Co-founder of DJ’s Creative Unit, which has produced ‘Har Mard Ka Dard’, on the making of the new show. 

What made you come up with such a story line?
The need to do such a different kind of a story came up because I was really bored of doing stories about women. All the stories are about a bahu, a married woman and how she gets tortured in her sasural. So we asked, why not have a series with a male protagonist, and Life OK was looking for something like that. We had earlier done the show ‘Sumit Sambhal Lega’, which also had a male protagonist as the lead, and it was very enjoyable for us as we got to tell many different things. When we started to work on it, there was a universal thought, which was ‘mard ko bhi dard hota hai’ and so we started developing ideas around what is a man’s peak point. How a man is stuck between all the women in his life and how he is trying to manage them all and understand them and live up to all their expectations. 

How is ‘Har Mard Ka Dard’ different from all the other shows that you have produced so far?
DJ’s has always tried to do something different, not just from others but also our other work. Be it ‘Left Right Left’, ‘Jassi Jaisi Koi Nahin’, ‘Chotti Bahu’ or ‘Just Mohabbat’, we have endeavoured to carve our own path. So, we always start with something that no one has ever seen and that’s where ‘Har Mard Ka Dard’ has a different feeling. It is also a dramedy and not an out-and-out sitcom; we call it a ‘Famcom’ as in a family comedy. The genre is very interesting, where the idea is that the whole family watches it and has a lot of fun and so there are some unique elements. 

How are you creating differentiation for the show, which will compete with shows like ‘Shakti’ on Colors and ‘Pardes Mein Hai Mera Dil’ on Star Plus in the same time band?
Anything that is going to be very different will be watched. You cannot compete with similar kind of shows. The idea here is that if you have a different thing, you will also have another kind of audience. People don’t want just one thing. We have a different genre and so we stand apart.

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