Hidden Nuggets: Fastrack Eyegear – Bikers Don’t Cry

Around 2005, John Abraham had come on board as the brand ambassador for Fastrack Sunglasses. The penetration of sunglasses in India was abysmally low at some 17%.

John Abraham was known to be passionate about bikes and Fastrack tried to use this association of its brand ambassador to launch its ‘Bikers’ range of sunglasses.

Lowe Lintas was the advertising agency. Earlier John had been used with the Fastrack line – “How many you have?”. But the idea did not work. Nobody wanted multiple sunglasses and sunglasses were always sold on style until then.

Plus all past researches had indicated that the biggest barrier for entering the category was the overt style statement the glasses made and though the style was desirable, people were unsure if they could carry it off.

Research suggested that sunglasses could be sold by functionality. And people needed to ‘own’ sunglasses.

With the quirkiness of the brand personality, the edginess of all communication it was a tough ask for Rajesh Ramaswamy (who was driving creative) to bring functionality/ rationality into the picture.

Suddenly, it struck him that while driving motorbikes, one of the biggest problems were specks of dust getting into the eyes which left him teary-eyed. He married that thought with John  personality and bingo he had the concept.  Quite logically, that’s also when the line ‘Bikers Don’t Cry’ came along to Rajesh.

If the creative came easily to him, it was the shoot which left him on tenterhooks. It was shot at Malshej Ghats. If anything could go wrong it did. (But then that is beyond this ;), let’s leave it for a drink!).

The film was shot by Sudhir Makhija and the music was given by Sameeruddin.

And needless to say sales perked up after this campaign.