How Tanishq broke into the bridal jewellery market in India

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₹500 crore in a market which was approximately ₹50,000 crore There was so much scope for growth! The other substantive point this fork-in-the-road moment raised was: a brand is far too important to be left in the hands of the brand manager. In consumer businesses, the proposition of the brand defines the scope of its play in the industry and that decision cannot be abrogated to a brand manager, likening the brand strategy to ‘some ads’.

It is the CEO’s responsibility and duty. The first TV film that expressed this new proposition is also one of the best Tanishq films of all time.

RamSam (Rajesh Ramaswamy) is now an independent filmmaker and was the creative director at Lintas in 2005. ‘We struggled for a few weeks in trying to crack our first film to communicate Revitalising Tradition,’ recollects RamSam, on a Zoom call we are on, joined by Sudhir, his business partner and the head of the Tanishq account in Lintas for many years.

After struggling to create a solid screenplay, the Lintas team hit pay dirt after Vikram Satyanath, the account planner on the team, came back after seeing Vidya Balan’s movie Parineeta and suggested that they create a period setting. That idea gave birth to the launch of the ‘New Tales of Tradition’ campaign, with the film showcasing an early twentieth-century wealthy Bengali household with all its traditions, but with a twist: a demure-looking daughter-in-law wearing an exquisite kundan necklace, her ghunghat (veil) in place, is shown as being respectful to her in-laws, praying in the puja room, playing with her young son, and then taking the wheel of their vintage car to the amusement of her indulgent husband and approving mother-in-law, watching from the first-floor window.