Iconic Ads: Center Shock – Hila Ke Rakh De

One day Ashok Dhingra and Sameer Suneja went to meet Piyush Pandey with a new candy. They said they had a great product, and Ogilvy needed to make a great advertisement.

Piyush decided to try the candy called Center Shock. He bit into and the sourness of the product hit him, and he exclaimed ‘Hila Ke Rakh De.’ Ashok and Sameer said great! They decided to go ahead with the distribution with the line which Piyush had just exclaimed.

They asked Piyush now to make a commercial with the line. The brief could not have been simpler. Translate the core of the brand simply. Make it fun, quirky and unforgettable – ‘shockingly different’.

Abhijit Avasthi thought about the idea, and Prasoon Pandey shot the film. It communicated in a bizarre yet funny way, the liquid-filled chewing gum which ‘shook you up’

The casting was very important. They got Honey Shahi to be the old-fashioned barber. They were looking around for someone who looked goofy and funny for the customer role, and they found him in a lighting assistant, Varun. Varun did not know how to act. They placed a one-way mirror, and a bored Varun created all those faces which they recorded without his knowledge.

All the sounds and voice over were by Chetan Shashital. Music was by Ehsaan Noorani and Loy Mendonca

Hila Diya!