Memory is our strictest benchmark: Paper Boat's Neeraj Kakkar on Rizwan

Paper Boat, the brand from Hector Beverages, recently came out with its latest digital-only film – ‘Rizwan’. The three-and-a-half-minute long film ‘Rizwan’ is Paper Boat’s first foray into legitimate fiction story-telling on film.

Conceptualised by Delhi-based agency Humour Me, the film delves into the world of nostalgia and memories, like the earlier Paper Boat films. In this case, the film highlights the sensory perception of smell and how the fragrance of the ‘Raat Ki Rani’ flower transports an elderly Rizwan (played by actor Ram Sethi), who is visually challenged, to his childhood world of vivid imagination and magic created by his mother.

Neeraj Kakkar, Founder and Chief Executive Officer, Hector Beverages, and Dhruv Sachdeva, Founder, Humour Me, speak at length about the making of Rizwan, the creative thought process behind the film, the power of a strong story, expanding the scope of nostalgia factor and much more. Excerpts:

AdGully (AG): What went on behind the creative ideation of ‘Rizwan: Keeper of the Gates of Heaven’?
Neeraj Kakkar (NK): One of the things that we feel very strongly about and feel proud of is our taste. Internally when we talk about our product base, we are firm that we are not competing with the actual taste of other products. Our competition is with thousands of years of history, the competition is with grandmothers and how they made the drinks, the competition is with street vendors and how they made it. But the biggest benchmark which we need to cross for selling our products is the memory of that taste. The memory of any taste is better than the actual taste itself, because we remember the good part of it. The memory is the strictest benchmark for anybody to compete with and we as a company are competing with memories of those tastes. This is the point that we have tried to portray in the Rizwan film – it is about the memories. In Rizwan’s case it is the fragrance of the ‘Raat Ki Rani’ flower, which transports him to a different world which is imaginary, incidents which probably didn’t happen, but that’s how he assumes it to be. That’s his innocence. Probably the actual world is not that good, but the memory of that world is magical; and for us, too, the memory of the taste is magical. That’s the point that we wanted to bring alive in this film.

AG: How different was the brief given to the agency, Humour Me, for the Rizwan film, compared to the earlier creative briefs?
NK: The objective of this film is to tell the idea behind Paper Boat and not the product itself. If you look at some of our other campaigns – the Gulzar video which we made last year, then there is the ‘Hum Honge Kamyaab’ video – the idea of the overall concept, which is much bigger than the product itself, is always at the core. The innocence, the purity, the authenticity, the alive part of it – these have always been at the core of our communication rather than the product itself.

AG: Paper Boat campaigns would certainly trigger the nostalgia factor in a certain age group – say 30 years and above. But how would you create a connect with the young generation today that might never have had a homemade drink and mostly weaned on a diet of store-bought beverages?
NK: I think every generation thinks that the next generation that is coming up is very different, actually that is not true. Everybody goes through the same childhood. If you look at a 10 year old child, I think most of the memories that your create at that time – the memory of having a Paper Boat drink – it’s the innocence of that age, which helps you create this memory, because you don’t understand laws or gravity or relationships or why what is happening. You form in your own imagination the reasons why things are happening. Thus, we do not think the present generation is in any way less innocent than we were and they will continue to have their own set of memories.

But on the product side, we are creating memories of the traditional drinks. We are proud to say that we have so many anecdotal evidences around. There are so many kids who, for the first time in their lives, had Aam Panna which is made by Paper Boat. And these kids when they grow up, their memories will be around Paper Boat Aam Panna.

Dhruv Sachdeva, Founder, Humour Me (via email):

AG: How did you come up with the idea of Rizwan and his story for the Paper Boat campaign? What was the creative thought process behind it?
Dhruv Sachdeva (DS): Writing a story like ‘Rizwan’ is like going on an adventure. It starts with a hint of inspiration, and you have to commit to the journey. You have to trust your instinct about the discovering it along the way. The hint of inspiration in this case was the name ‘Rizwan’. It started with the character name. I knew I wanted to tell the story of a much older man, whose innocence was untouched by time. The name also means ‘The keeper of the gates of heaven’, which became an integral part of the story.

Paper Boat is a brand that lends itself perfectly to tell stories. I just had to find the right the story. Ammi’s character was central in shaping Rizwan’s thinking. And, like all good journeys, as I committed to writing it, it led me to that fact that the character had to be visually impaired.

There were multiple influences now that I look back that provided the raw material for this story. I’ve been a keen observer of cinema my whole life. In the process, I’ve exposed myself to all genres and a range of writing. There’s a bit of Paul Haggis’ ‘Crash’, Taylor Hackford’s ‘Ray’ and one of my favourite documentaries by the name of ‘The lady in Number 6’ in this.

AG: What was the brief received from Paper Boat?
DS: Paper Boat never gave us a brief or asked us to work ground up. They allowed me to be genuinely inspired and come up with something that we at Humour Me believed would work for the brand.

Parvesh Debuka, the champion behind the brand’s marketing, had the vision to trust our creative process. You need be a creative person to able to make a move such as this. He has the perfect balance between pragmatism and imagination.

It is a big risk to be able to commit to such a story for a brand. Hence, the rarity of this type of content. Full credit goes to the leadership at Paper Boat for having trusted our vision and backed our execution. So many factors can go wrong with a script this layered-animation to live action, dealing with contingencies such as a very old character with a dog, and the fact that he as a special condition... All grounds for things that can go horribly wrong. But with big risks come big dividends, we’re just happy it worked out.

AG: How difficult was it to maintain the balance between keeping the story poignant enough to strike a chord and yet not become overly sentimental? How did you achieve that balance?
DS: I wanted people to feel exactly how I was feeling when I’d imagined it. I was clear it had to have finesse in the way it was delivered. I wanted people to see the power of innocence. How our ecology is very much dependent on the way we choose to see things – making Rizwan’s view of the world a magical place (A way in which we all hope to see the world).

I never think about the audience and how people would respond to a piece of art whilst in the process of creation. If it is something that I would enjoy, I assume people will love it for the same reasons. You have to detach yourself from external views whilst creating something, it’s the only way you’ll create something you intended to without adulteration.

I’m hugely judgemental about my own work, and am constantly disappointed by the end result, knowing it can always be better.

In this particular, I was very happy with the end result. I hoped people would see it the same way. We at Humour Me are determined to make branded content and entertainment that can compete with global standards, and will continue to work toward this endeavour.

Film credits:
Agency: Humour Me
Film Production: Humour Me
Chief Creative Officer: Dhruv Sachdeva
Senior Creative Manager: Clifford Afonso
Creative Manager: Dhruv Visvanath
Client Servicing Head: Gitana Singh

Script & Concept: Dhruv Sachdeva
Director: Tanvi Gandhi
Sound Score: Dhruv Sachdeva, Anindo Bose
Sound Design: Dhruv Visvanath, Anindo Bose
Sound Mixing & Mastering: Plug ‘N’ Play studio
Sound Engineer: Anindo Bose

Director of Photography: Harshvir Oberai
Assistant Directors: Jahaan Noble, Avni Murthy
Illustration & Animation: Nikunj Patel
Actor: Ram Sethi
Dog: Sheru

Production Head: Megha Bhansal
Production Managers: Sumer Mehta, Satish Rajan
Editor: Tanvi Gandhi
Colorist: Tony Adrial
Casting Manager - Kalpesh More
Art Director: Madhur Madhavan
Stylist: Avni Murthy
Wardrobe / Dressman: Rakesh Dada
Hair & Make-up: Anil Chandel
Script Translation: Zain Anwar
V.O Recording: Zain Calcuttawala

Location: Suchak Bungalow
Live Sound: Roshan Pathak
Gaffer: Akil Shaikh
Focus Puller: Rajendra Dubey
Camera Rental: Camera Plus Pvt Ltd
Light Rental: A1 Lights & Grips