BTS: Using Virtual Production Combining Actual Sets & Props For Cristos Campaign

The wafers/chips market in India is laden with leading national and international brands vying for the consumer’s attention and taste buds in more distinct ways than one – but there is always room for more, and Gopal Snacks truly believes so. A manufacturer of ethnic savouries which is evolving into a regional favourite, Gopal Snacks is eventually establishing itself as a mass-market brand with its expansion in the country. Wafer is perceived as a cooler and more modern snack, and the company took a bold step and unveiled Cristos – a product line of wafers offering a variety of flavours in the market - Cristos Mexican Chilli, Cristos Salted, Cristos African Mint, and Cristos Korean BBQ, with plans to introduce more flavours in the future. 

Following a lot of thought and various rounds of deliberation, Manish Bhatt, Founder Director, Scarecrow M&C Saatchi and Rajiv Rao, Director, Nirvana Films worked with the brand and various teams to put the brand anthem in place, casting the brand mascot – Cristopher, working on creating the landscape and more – from creative, strategy to the production of the campaign for Cristos, which has been present across digital, OTT, social media, outdoor, activations and radio. 

Talking to Everything Experiential in an exclusive chat, Bhatt and Rao highlight details about designing the brand mascot of Cristopher, getting Pratik Motwani to play this role, creating the World of Mexican Chilling through virtual production combining actual sets and props, and other nuances that were focused upon behind the scenes to put the campaign together.

Edited excerpts:

What did you keep in mind for designing the character of Cristopher?

Manish: Cristopher is the personification of youth attitude - pure chilling. He is the chilled-out hero of ‘The World of Mexican Chilling’, a world we’ve specially created for Gen Z, millennials and urban youth. This is an exclusive & ownable quirky world that has its own sense of humour, language, mannerisms, music and body language - which is a blend of Mexican ethos and a carefree attitude of chilling without a cause. On one hand, Cristopher reflects Mexican culture with his mariachi-inspired dressing sense, Flamenco guitar, sombrero hat and trumpets. On the other hand, he indulges in quirky activities, pranks, tricks, games and style statements alongside his buddy. 

As the second-ever human mascot for an Indian brand (after Onida’s Devil), what kind of long-term goal does the brand plan to focus on when it comes to brand identity? As this is just about the mascot’s Mexican look and feel for the Mexican-flavoured wafers, does the brand plan to have various renditions of the brand mascot for different flavours? 

Manish: The brand mascot is meant to be a long-term brand identity, similar to how Ronald is for McDonald’s. We have an ambition to contribute to popular culture, like people say Santa Claus is, in some sense, Coca-Cola’s imagination. 

As of today, Cristopher represents the flagship flavour of Mexican Chilli of Cristos Wafers. And that’s the route we have taken to focus on a single flavour of the brand and do not plan to extend to other flavours at this time.

Keeping the brand mascot, Pratik Motwani in mind, what kind of preparations were required to get him to play the role of Cristopher? 

Manish: I think he is an ace actor and he also teaches acting. After repeated rounds of extensive research, thorough evaluation, and deliberation among 150-200 talented candidates, the agency zeroed in on Pratik Motwani as Cristopher. Pratik is a versatile actor who has taught at prestigious institutions like The Kennedy Centre and Yale School of Drama. Pratik has also appeared in web series like Avrodh Season 2, Bajao and Special Ops Season 2. He is also the Hindi voice of Dev Patel in Slumdog Millionaire. He currently is on the Board of Directors of The International Michael Chekhov Association, NYC - a prestigious premier institution in NYC that teaches the Michael Chekhov Technique of acting.

He is fully immersed in the character of Cristopher - I feel as of today he is the best fit for the mascot we wanted to create. He is truly a director’s delight. Rajiv loves him. He did a workshop with him for a few days - however, Pratik constantly improvises with the character he is playing. 

The hat was a bit tight and a bit painful for him, but he managed it with great spirit throughout the long shoot hours.

Meghana Arora, the stylist, has also done a lot of research, along with my team – she blended traditional Mexican details with Cristopher’s character quirks, to create his look. 

When you think about the first thought about Cristos, from designing the character of Cristopher until the execution of the films for the product – what has been the constant thought about building, living and executing the ‘Mexican’ experience to an Indian Gen Z consumer who is already exposed to other leading brands and their advertising and marketing in the same category? How easy or difficult it has been to stand out from the clutter, in that sense?

Manish: In a time when a disproportionate amount of the brand budget is being spent on celebrities and influencers, we created our discrete influencer and celebrity for the brand. And when we studied the world of brand mascots, we found that the majority of them are either illustrations, animations or CG. This inspired us to create Cristopher, arguably the second-ever human brand mascot in the history of Indian advertising after Onida’s Devil from the late 80s. But we didn’t stop there; we also created an entire World of Mexican Chilling which is a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity not only for the brand team, the production house and the director but also for everyone in our agency. This approach itself is unique enough to stand out from the usual youth campaigns we see every day. 

Everyone is taking shortcuts to build a brand. We fundamentally took the long path. We wanted to cater to youth with something as quirky & endearing as the Jukka Brothers campaign of MTV created by Fallon McElligott, Minneapolis, from two decades ago. 

When you and Rajiv visualised and executed the scripts, what were the nuances that you decided to focus on to not only bring the characters to life but also to make sure that it has a lasting impact on the viewer’s/consumer’s mind? 

Rajiv: The films are all about Cristopher and his friend ‘Buddy’ as they chill and enjoy life in their own perfect World of Mexican Chilling. We decided that the characters should be somewhat different from each other and yet enjoy some things together.

Cristopher is the kind of guy who is happy, boisterous, and sometimes mischievous. He is passionate about Mexican Chilli and enjoys painting, dancing, music and living it up. 

Buddy, on the other hand, is a wide-eyed simpleton who admires Cristopher like a fanboy. He even unknowingly mimics Cristopher out of this admiration. Buddy is always up for anything without having a doubt. 

We ensured that both actors maintained their respective characters at all times. The tone and manner of the films take us back to the simplistic times of films like Laurel and Hardy and other such movies. 

Crafting landscapes for ad films has become a mix of real-life landscaping and AI-generated landscapes too, for various reasons – be it cost-effectiveness for the client, ease in process etc. What were the pointers that you had in mind about creating the landscape for the films as well as selecting the props – and how have these helped design the world of Cristos? How much of it has been shot at real locations – and where? And how much of it is AI or tech-generated – which parts of the films have been generated through AI, and why those specific parts? 

Rajiv: The setting and backdrop of the films provide context and mood for the films. Given the nature of the scripts, we decided to go with a picture-postcard-perfect pristine beach with blue waters, a clear sky, and white-golden sands. The background setting is meant to look real yet too good to be real. The goal was to transport viewers to a magical paradise, a world of Cristos. 

The only way to attain this look was to create one. Virtual production combined with actual sets and props was the perfect solution. The backdrop beaches were digitally created before the shoot. At the same time, we had the flexibility to change the background elements, such as repositioning the trees or shifting the clouds during the shoot. This was the major advantage of virtual production. The actors on set could see the final backdrop as they performed, rather than shooting against a flat green Chroma. This helped us to see the final result on set as we shot the films. 

Virtual production has been around for some time now and has gained a lot of popularity in Hollywood and around the world. It is as effective as shooting on location, without the hassles of nature’s challenges. 

To achieve a striking and consistent look for the campaign, we kept the background clean and minimal. The lighting was bright and sunny with vibrant colours. The focus was always on the characters and their performance. Every prop was designed to look like it was handmade from natural materials or from another bygone era. 

Composing the music for the films with leading names in the music industry – how has their contribution to the films’ anthem, enhanced it? Any particular reason for choosing to work with these particular names in the music industry – if yes, why?

Manish: We were looking at integrating the campaign, and a thread of catchy, common tunes plays a very important role in binding every element of the campaign. 

Just like nations have their national anthems, The World of Mexican Chilling also has its own brand anthem. And since Mexican Culture is being celebrated through this flavour, Flamenco guitars, Trumpets and Accordion have been used to bring the feeling of Mexicana alive. The lyrics are playful and quirky which creates a light-hearted, fun, and chill atmosphere for the urban youth. It’s a groovy, peppy and enjoyable tune perfect for listening while chilling. 

Music in a highly finished scratch form was presented well ahead of the final scripts. When we cracked the phrase ‘Mexican Chilling’, we already started writing rhyming phrases and generating lyrics for the song. Then I thought of Suman Sridhar - the quirkiest singer I know and have worked with. The lead female singer, Suman Sridhar, is known for her upbeat and groovy style, with Bollywood hits like ‘Muskaane Jhooti Hain’ (Talaash), ‘Fifi’ (Bombay Velvet), and ‘Hawa Hawai’ (Shaitan). 

When it comes to quirky music, I always love to jam with Aman Pant. The music is composed by Aman Pant, known for his work in Janhit Mein Jaari, Good Luck Jerry, Dozzakh, Dunki, Guns and Gulaabs, and received critical acclaim for his original score in R. Balki's Chup. He has scored nearly 3000 ads as a composer. 

Also, the trumpet is a key instrument for the Mexican genre - the trumpet is played by the great Kishore Sodha, also known as the Trumpet King of India. He has performed on iconic tracks like ‘O Maria’, ‘Sagar Kinaare’, ‘Bachna Ae Haseeno’, and ‘Inteha ho Gayi’. 

Neha Kalra

BW Reporters She is the Senior Editorial Lead at Businessworld and majorly covers pieces on advertising, marketing, branding and experiential marketing. She writes closely for BW Marketing World and Everything Experiential.