Iconic Ads: Thums Up – Bungee Jumping
The typical Bollywood macho hero stereotype imagery was broken. The hero wanted to do something cool & daring, but not typical macho.
In the late 90s, Thums Up advertising was about in-your-face machoism.
Around that time, the Bollywood superhit Dilwale Dulhania Le Jayenge was released, and the typical Bollywood macho hero stereotype imagery was broken. The hero wanted to do something daring, but it had to be cool and not the typical “mardangani’ type!
There was also an article in the Times of India, stating that Khandala had seen some bungee jumping for the first time.
The idea came from Agnello Dias. The Chaitra Leo Burnett team of Chax, Pops Sridhar and Agnello along with Ram Madhvani (director) cracked the concept in a resort in Manori.
The protagonist was more like a boy next door, a casual and cool guy (not a muscular man)!
The expertise of the world’s best bungee jumping trainer, A J Hackett was used in India (no computer effects).
This ad became extremely popular and bungee jumping, in particular, became famous. This led to a craze. Kids started trying this on their own using bedsheets, ropes, etc. Unfortunately, some kids killed themselves even though there was a warning & disclaimer in the beginning.
