‘Amitabh Bachchan will shout at people?’: Piyush Pandey created Big B’s ‘angry old man’ image for India’s most effective ad campaign, actor did it for free 

In his book ‘Pandeymonium: Piyush Pandey On Advertising’, Pandey shared that Big B agreed to do the campaign for free as it was a government initiative, and was for a good cause. Pandey shared that they needed a great idea to pull off the campaign and that’s when he spoke to Bachchan with his new take on the character of ‘angry young man’.

“I rushed to Mr Bachchan and said, ‘Sir, everyone calls you the symbol of the Angry Young Man, because of your roles in your earlier super-hit films. How about you playing the Angry Old Man in this campaign?’ He loved the idea,” he recalled and added that Bachchan helped in “fine tuning” the script.

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Piyush shared that when he presented the idea to the bureaucrats, “they fell off their chair.” “‘How can Mr Bachchan shout at people?’ I replied, ‘Of course, he can and should. He is going to do it like a dad who is upset with his child. There is love behind the anger’,” he recalled. He also made it a point to tell them, “Mr Bachchan said it would be impactful.” And they instantly agreed.

The budget of the campaign, despite its ambition, was very small. In fact, the crew had to shoot at locations of Bachchan’s other films and ad shoots during lunch breaks. “We used to shoot in 20-25 minutes and get out of there,” Piyush said.

In another chat with NEWS9 Live, Piyush shared that the entire campaign was about Bachchan getting angry at people for not taking their kids for the polio vaccine. “That entire polio campaign was him firing at people, ‘Dhikkar hai ki tum kal polio ke booth pe nahi aaye. Bachche ki jaan se khel rahe ho. (Shame on you that you didn’t show up at the polio booth. You are playing with your child’s life)’ So that was the tone. When there was great attendance at the booths, he would say in the next one, ‘Shabash, come on’,” he recalled. Many people who brought their children for vaccination said at the time that they thought Amitabh had become angry, and didn’t want to anger him further.

On 27 March 2014, the World Health Organization (WHO) declared India a polio-free country. Amitabh Bachchan famously didn’t charge for the ad campaign.

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