Ads vs. Content – Capturing Roller Coaster Experiences at Imagica Behind-the-scenes 

Ads focus on the brand, the USP—how cool we are, look at our shiny logo or products. Content that is share-worthy starts from the audience, is made for them, and the brand goes along for the ride when it goes big. The content shouldn’t be about the brand or category but about the people, the audience who would use it.

Not about roller coasters, but about the people who take them.

To get a sense of the place and the rides, I took a cab from Pune all the way to Imagicaa, an incredible theme park near Mumbai. Spent hours going through it all, and then came back, jammed with the team, and settled for a simple one shot taken with a GoPro tied to the roller coaster, compared to fancy drone shots or showcasing how cool the place is.

That simplicity of idea and execution made all the difference. The roller coaster was an amazing metaphor for life. The team worked and deep-dived on the list of pointers many times until the flow seemed natural; then it was ready.

It’s not about how fancy the production is, it’s about storytelling—about how simply we can connect A to B and make it for and about the audience, and that starts by exhaustive deep dive, looking at the audience from multiple vantage points, creating for them :)

Proud of how the team executed, shot, and stitched it together with multiple rounds of reviews.

Now, imagine this format for your brand or your audience, what real life experiences can be metaphors for your audience’s pain points or user journeys.. fill in the blank, and you may have content that is truly for your audience

Car Names Pronounced Wrong – Behind-the-scenes

“What are the pain points, micro-moments, and tiniest of frustrations Indians have with cars?” Identifying the first 10-15 was easy, but it became uphill and against the wind to find deeper truths. It was in the deep dive research and the journey from 15 to 100 micro moments where incredible insights were hidden. That’s what I loved about brainstorming and jam sessions—we weren’t just figuring out ideas; we were getting to the tiny truths. Ideas just happened when there were enough dots to connect.

Had a lot of fun talking about one particular pain point, and when we enjoyed the process, the audience would too. We just needed to keep the authenticity from concept to execution. Everything in this video was non-fiction, driven by a meticulous process. Ideation through the IUCTC framework (Inspirational, Useful, Celebrate their life, Topical, Change the world) made the content relatable and useful for learning pronunciations, and execution was driven by detailed bullet point lists. From selecting the final list of car names to choreographing actions for each name and ensuring the flow of shots kept viewers engaged—every six seconds.

The content the team enjoyed creating the most worked the best since it didn’t feel like work but play. With the incredible skills and talent at Cars24, the team was driven, and everything was executed 100% in-house, even the acting, which was amazing. The results were heartwarming.. over 7000 comments, about the love for cars and one shared pain point :)

Videos have a longer shelf life, when the idea is share-worthy

Whoa! Even after two years.. this April fools videos is still going big.. 15k reactions within a day.. on LinkedIn videos have a longer shelf life.. when the idea is share-worthy.. Top that with killer in-house execution.. ❤️
 
Thanks @pascal_bornet for sharing this, sending you the book, grateful
 

Video ft. in Print – 3X viral already

So cool to see the video covered in print.. across TOI Gurgaon, Delhi and other cities.. and featured among amazing brands..

grateful for this and proud of the team in killer in-house execution.. this concept has gone viral 3 separate times now.. across Indian WhatsApp groups across ❤️😊🇮🇳 g

Train mein hai ghar wali baat – 15M views in 5 days

For the love of India 🇮🇳

Crazy intensive research, multiple trips in the train to validate every truth, incredible team work from the beautiful writing, to shooting, editing , even featuring in the shots.. 100% in-house execution, except the celebrity voiceover 😊

A video about and for India.. grateful for incredible response – 15M views, over 100k shares in 5 days when last released – super proud of the team.. This remains my favourite, a true case study of our process.. 🙂