- In 2012,
Idea Cellular wanted to talk about its pan-India presence, and wanted to come up with a campaign that would capture the fancy of people across geographies. - The '
Honey Bunny ' song was created in order to come up with a quirky, catchy song that had the potential of going viral. Arun Iyer takes us behind the scenes of the ad and tells us all that went into its making.
It was in 2012 that erstwhile Idea Cellular wanted to come up with a campaign that would establish it as a national player with a pan-India presence. For that, it needed to do something different, to make sure that it appeals to audiences across the country. That is how, its extremely hummable and catchy jingle, ‘Honey Bunny’, came into being.
In the latest episode of BTS with Insiders, Arun Iyer, the brains behind the campaign, told us the story of how the song was created. It was that time in the brand’s history when it wanted to talk about its network. However, that is exactly what every other player in the segment was doing too. So how could Idea stand out?
Telling us what it is that Idea wanted to achieve at that point in time, Iyer said, “Till that point, Idea was more a regional player and it wanted to now go national, and talk about the strength of its network. However, at that time, it was par for the course. Everybody had claimed network. All competition at that point had already said that they are present nationally and it was a parity claim. So the core of what we were saying wasn’t interesting enough, because that had become expected from the category itself. So we thought how do we say it that it really sticks with people?”
At that point, the creative team had realized that a ringtone was a very effective way of knowing whether your network works. And then came the thought of creating a quirky ringtone that could go viral.
That was the time when Iyer got together with music composer
It was during one session at Trivedi’s studio when Iyer along with members from his creative team including Ashwin Varkey and Subodh Menon were brainstorming and trying to come up with the lyrics for what he calls this ‘completely bizarre song’. “It was around 12:30 during our session that suddenly Ashwin said Honey and Subodh said Bunny and we said, ‘That’s It!’ From there, the rest of the song got written by itself. Everybody threw in a line here and there, said Iyer.
It was decided that Bhattacharya would sing the song which was recorded at 2am. “We sat and chilled at the studio till 4:30 that morning and we just couldn’t stop singing the song, and that’s how we realized it has something in it,” added Iyer.
While the song was complete, the shoot which was done across the country, proved to be a mammoth task. “We shot in almost every part of the country and it happened over 20-22 days. During the shoot, we took flights to and drove to places, the names of which I had never heard of. Parts of the ad have been shot in Sikkim. From there we were supposed to go to Kolkata in the next leg. However, at that point, Kolkata closed down due to a strike. The entire crew was holed up in Sikkim for three whole days. With nothing else to do, we were going to the movie halls, watching movies, just hanging out and it was great fun,” said Iyer.
Right after the campaign went live, the ‘Honey Bunny’ page on the company’s website recorded over a one million visits during the first nine days of the campaign’s launch, according to media reports. The jingle also blew up everywhere with people using it as ringtones, or simply singing it. Till today, the song is considered to be one of the most catchy, quirky jingles and evokes a lot of nostalgia among people.