All advertisements have something to sell, but only a select few have something to say. On the occasion of this year’s Mother’s Day, Tanishq released an ad-film called The Interview, which spoke to countless women in India and abroad, disseminating a subtle yet strong message about how to understand maternity leave in the context of women’s lives and careers.
Towards the end of 2021, in time for the start of the wedding season, Tanishq had released another ad that spurred dialogue around relationships and the communication that defines them. Titled Marriage Conversations, the ad is an example of how honesty constitutes the most important kind of intimacy.
In an attempt to discover the story behind both these ads that have taken the public imagination by storm, we caught up with Kopal Naithani and Binaifer Dulani, the brains behind the brilliance on screen. One of the most recognisable names in the world of ad-films, Kopal runs her own production house called Superfly Films and has worked with some of India’s biggest brands, such as Axis Bank, HUL and Flipkart. A founding member of the creative agency Talented, Binaifer, or Binny (as Kopal calls her), has worked as creative director at Dentsu Webchutney and has been featured in The Guardian, BBC and the World Bank’s Digital2Equal initiative.
In a wide-ranging chat, Kopal and Binaifer opened up on how they started working together, their creative vision for the Tanishq ads, how women’s stories can be told better and more.
Binny told the client that if Kopal can’t do the project now, we’ll do it a year later
Entertainment/The Telegraph: How did the two of you start working together? Have you two worked on any projects apart from the Tanishq ads?
Binaifer Dulani: We started out by working on an ad for Uber during the lockdown, and so we had to do it over Zoom. The idea was to imagine a safer world where everyone can be an empath. Then, of course, we did Marriage Conversations and The Interview, or the “rebranding of maternity leave” as we like to call it. Whenever we work together, Kopal and I try to show society not as it is, but how it can be. We want to show a society that’s equal and Kopal has really helped in developing that discourse.
Kopal Naithani: The Uber shoot was happening across four cities over Zoom, so that was quite a challenging project for us to begin with. But we really enjoyed working with each other from the get-go, even though we hadn’t met in person. After the Uber ad, we discussed quite a few projects together, went back and forth with our ideas, but for one reason or another the projects didn’t work out.
Then she approached me with the story for Marriage Conversations, and I told her I really wanted to do this, since I had lived the story with my husband a decade ago. He and I had spoken about all kinds of things that may or may not happen after we get married. Having said that, I was having issues with my scheduling and was in two minds over doing the shoot. That’s when it was decided by Binny and the client that they would push the project by a year if my dates weren't available. I called up my producer and told him that we’ve got to find a way to do this, I don’t care how. And that’s how Marriage Conversations eventually happened.
Ad filmmakers Kopal Naithani and Binaifer Dulani. Source: Kopal Naithani and Binaifer Dulani
We deeply care about representation of female characters in our stories
Explain the division of responsibility or the exact roles that each of you undertakes when you are collaborating on an ad-film.
Kopal Naithani: The way it works is that Binny ideates with the client, and then she comes to me with a script. She presents that script as a skeleton and asks me how we want to proceed with it. Such an approach really helps me open my mind. The goal then becomes for us to write it, even if it means writing the script from scratch. When collaborating, it’s all about being honest to our thoughts, to what we want to say. We sit down and measure each word, trying to understand how every element will impact the viewer. Because creative ownership is something we share. It’s not my story or hers, it’s ours.
Binaifer Dulani: I think it’s one of those rare relationships where there’s full creative accountability on both sides. A lot of creative relationships suffer because of creative egos and the overstepping that happens on each side, but that’s not something we’ve experienced together. Whenever we have a script, we do multiple workshops and come up with a Binny version, a Kopal version, a Binny-Kopal version. We go through several iterations before arriving at the final product. Once on set, we play a lot off each other’s ideas and tweak things wherever necessary. The most vital part of collaborating is complete clarity in both of our minds in terms of the response we want the viewer to have. Another thing we deeply care about is the representation of female characters in our stories. We try to conceive our ads in a post-feminist society, which helps us transmit social messages without being preachy.
When women are away on maternity leave, they aren’t on vacation
How did the idea for The Interview come about? Was the intention to highlight the leader in every mother a conscious choice from the start or did it emerge during the ideation phase?
Binaifer Dulani: In most industries, senior leadership roles are dominated by men. This is because at a certain stage of their careers, which is usually the child-bearing stage, women drop out from the workforce. At such times, the onus is always placed on the mother, as if women’s issues are issues that only women need to solve. Instead, these are human issues that require an ecosystem of collective support.
In the film, there’s a shot of the husband and the child on the woman’s phone, which shows that a support system is needed. If we need to create a new world where women are empowered, systems and structures need to change. That desire for change is how this ad happened. As part of our preparation, we had a lot of conversations with new moms. A lot of these women shared how they had to start from scratch again, work their way up, or go back to the salary they had two years ago once they returned from maternity leave. But the fact is that when women are away on maternity leave, they aren’t on vacation. They have to go through a transformational journey, which equips them with many of the skills required to become better leaders. The Interview is an attempt to repackage leadership and understand how women can learn from motherhood to emerge as better leaders.
Kopal Naithani: I myself had an extremely difficult maternity leave, and I felt it’s something I just forgot about. But while doing the film, a lot of the experiences and memories came back to me. Women have to play too many roles, and they’re rarely understood and appreciated in their holistic portrayal of all those roles. Those roles affect how we perform professionally, because most of us are taught that as women we’ve got to do everything perfectly. Which is why in job interviews, you’ll hear recruiters ask a woman who’s a mother about how she can manage her kid and her work. You’ll never hear a question like that being posed to a man.
What was the inspiration behind comparing motherhood to a life bootcamp?
Binaifer Dulani: A maternity leave is considered to be a break, when in reality, it’s anything but. When we started talking about this, Kopal and I ended up finishing each other’s words. That’s when we came up with the idea that maternity leave isn’t a break, but a life bootcamp, where you go through a lot of physical, mental and emotional rigour. And the bootcamp analogy just stuck and remained all the way through. Prashant Gopalakrishnan from Talented had suggested the phrase “life bootcamp”.
What remains in a marriage are trust, friendship and honesty
In Marriage Conversations, it was refreshing to see couples talk openly about their vulnerabilities. How did you see the relationship between honesty and love, between communication and marriage, while making this ad?
Kopal Naithani: There can be no marriage without honesty or communication. In the past, people from my mother’s generation would persevere their way through a marriage no matter what. Then we came to a generation where divorces became far more common, and today we have couples separating six months after marriage. The question is what can be done to create a balance. We have to realise that the giddiness of love, the excitement of being around your partner, the sexual relationship, everything fades after a point. What remains in a marriage are trust, friendship and honesty. As long as couples can do that, they can live together, or leave each other with dignity.
Binaifer Dulani: In India, when we start planning a wedding, we’re just focused on the wedding instead of looking at the larger picture of marriage. We give disproportionate importance to a single day of celebration over lifelong companionship. For this ad, we wanted to include conversations that could quell some of the most prominent social stigmas as well as topics that resonate with the youth, be it a woman deciding about her body in terms of choosing adoption over child-bearing or a man deciding to pursue a new challenge in his career and asking his wife for financial support or the issues of mental health that are such a crucial part of any relationship. For the second of those conversations, the woman says, “Wife support karegi toh koi problem nahi hai na?” That’s Kopal’s magic, dealing with such a heavy topic with a throwaway line that reflects power through vulnerability.
It’s about women realising that they don’t need to beat themselves up if they can’t do everything
Both of you must have received a lot of feedback for both the Tanishq ads, including personal stories that resonated with the films. Any response that stands out as the most memorable?
Binaifer Dulani: With Marriage Conversations, we managed to cross the border and the ad was shared on several channels in Pakistan. That was really overwhelming. With The Interview, we got responses from Canada, Nigeria, the US, the UK, among other places. One of my favourite responses was from a woman who was on maternity leave and was due for a promotion, but when she came back, she found that the promotion went to her junior. Even though she felt dejected after what happened, she said that the ad and the conversation it generated gave her hope and made her feel better. A lot of women watching the ad feel heard and seen, and that’s what counts the most.
Kopal Naithani: Since I’m older than Binny, a lot of my friends have children. After watching The Interview, two of my closest friends called me and said that this is my life, and I’ve never really been able to come back to work after motherhood. Another friend told me that my work has never been the same again after I had a family. I started to think about my own break and how difficult it had been. I was telling Binny that this conversation has gone beyond craft. It’s no longer about us being good or bad storytellers, it’s about women realising that they don’t need to beat themselves up if they can’t do everything, fulfil all roles.
Tanishq told us that this isn’t about jewellery. It’s about the story
For both the ads you have done for Tanishq, what sort of a brief did you receive from the brand? Was there a checklist or a set of values that was non-negotiable?
Binaifer Dulani: We have a brave new world in terms of brands and clients. There are no specific briefs as such, but there’s a shared understanding of what the brand stands for. We believe in showing instead of preaching, and we believe in furthering stories of progressive womanhood. There’s been a constant conversation around who the Tanishq woman is, how certain moments can be reflected in the ad. But it’s an ongoing conversation, it’s not something that’s restricted to specific Tanishq campaigns.
Kopal Naithani: Tanishq wants to go beyond conventional brand appeal and stand for something. For The Interview, we had initially put some jewellery shots in the ad, but Tanishq told us that this isn’t about jewellery. It’s about the story. Eventually, we put one jewellery shot in the end for symbolism, but for the rest of the ad, the focus was just on the story. That’s the kind of client we had the pleasure of working with. It literally sets you free, and I’ve never seen anything like this before.
One lingering problem with ads is the narrative of women as superwomen and supermoms
Over the last decade or so, we are getting to see far more nuanced portrayals of women in ad-films, not least due to filmmakers like yourselves. What else can be done to make stories of women more relevant and relatable?
Binaifer Dulani: We’ve seen a lot of femvertising in the last few years, but it’s time for affirmative action. Today when you put an ad out on Women’s Day, the audience is asking why there’s no female representation in the creative credits. They are asking what your boardroom looks like. What kind of conversations are you having on gender equity? The time for lip service is over, it’s time to double down on affirmative action. More and more brands are waking up to this. When you see more diversity in the pool of decision-makers, you feel the conversations change.
In terms of storytelling, one lingering problem with ads is the narrative of women as superwomen and supermoms. That’s a problem because it dehumanises women and sets unrealistic expectations for them to live up to. If we are to make women’s stories more relevant and relatable, this narrative needs to change.
Kopal Naithani: There has to be intent. Don’t do women’s stories just because they are trendy. Of course, a brand has to sell its product, but there needs to be a conscious decision to show women differently. For creators like ourselves, the people we collaborate with need to be on the same plane.
Who are the filmmakers and storytellers that you follow and look up to?
Binaifer Dulani: I’ve been really inspired by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie’s quote : “There’s danger in a single story.” That’s something I like to apply to all my stories. In the industry, there’s Sakshi Choudhary, whose work I admire, because it’s a great commentary on where advertising needs to be.
Kopal Naithani: Much too late in my life, I got introduced to feminist literature -- Mary Wollstonecraft, Betty Friedan and Naomi Wolf. I read them and realised that I wasn’t empowered. That shaped my understanding of women’s stories, what happens when women go to work, when they stay at home, and everything that entails women’s everyday realities.
