DBS Bank's Chilli Paneer is back with an interactive twist

DBS Bank India launched Chilli Paneer 2, a first-of-a kind interactive digital ad film in India. The film has been conceptualised by SapientNitro and was released on December 18.

The film is a continuation of Chilli Paneer one and picks up from where the first season ended. The difference this time is that entire film is told from the perspective of the male protagonist, Ken. The film is interactive in nature and lets the viewers decide what happens to the protagonists.

The film begins at the Lemon Grass restaurant one night after service, where Asha is busy managing the finances of the restaurant. An upbeat Ken approaches her and asks her to take a holiday with him. At this point, the viewers are allowed to decide on whether the protagonists take an adventurous holiday or a business one. Depending on the option selected by the viewer, the film has eight possible outcomes. The various interactions take viewers through restaurant purchases, cook offs and a chase. As all the events unfold, the relationship between the protagonists takes center stage.

The interactive film ends with the film showing the viewer their personality type based on the options they selected along the way. Viewers have the chance to share their personalities with their friends on social media.

Sheran Mehra, head group strategic marketing and communications, DBS Bank India, said, “The primary objective is to build brand awareness. The approach was to engage with people through unique storytelling formats.  ‘Food’ continues to drive conversations in DBS Chilli Paneer 2. With the added layer of interactivity built in, the attempt is to let the consumer control and co-create the story of Ken and Asha with the bank playing a key role in each of the eight possibilities.”

"Our aim is to build on the awareness from Chilli Paneer 1. We were able to get around 600,000 engagements on that film and we are looking to leverage that", she added.

KV Sridhar, chief creative officer, SapientNitro, said, “The difference between one and two is that, one was about the story of love and commonalities because of their love of food and it the same time falling in love and that is where the story ends. In the second one, the challenge was, how do you take the story forward and then how do you make it different and add more people to the story. The brief was to take it forward, while making it exciting and more engaging for both the brand and the story. So what we did is to take from one of our philosophies which is, ‘a story lived is better than a story told’. People are not interested in a brand story, they are interested in their own stories. So unless you make them part of the story, they won’t be engaged in the story you are telling. That was the biggest challenge”.

 “What we did was to allow people to play the role of Ken in the Asha and Ken story and we shot the entire film from the eyes of the viewer. In the story, like Ken, you will face options at different points in time within the story and when you make a choice, the story will move ahead based on that choice. We are giving control to people to run the story they want to run. You have eight different stories in the interactive story and while the story is about the Asha and Ken, what happens is that based on the decisions you take it gives you a personality type. So along with your unique journey, you can also share your personality type with your friends on Facebook," he added.
 

Credits:
Client: DBS Bank
Creative agency: SapientNitro