HarperCollins India’s Parcel celebrates 5 years of being the longest ad in the history of Indian advertising
It can easily be called the Sholay of Indian Advertising. It is 8 minutes and 38 seconds long, the longest ad ever in Indian Advertising. It is dark. It is mysterious. And it features a murder.
In an age of Thumb stoppers and Skippable ads, HarperCollins India’s Parcel broke all records by telling an incredible tale of a woman murdered by an ex-lover in front of a huge audience and getting away with it. The audience stuck through the film, watching every second of this very suspenseful drama. The film, released five years ago on November 25, was a landmark work in the creative advertising of India. The day the film was released, it was number one trending on Twitter (now X). To celebrate the 5 years, Titus Upputuru, the director has shared the Behind the Scenes of the film on his Linked In and Instagram handles.
Based on a riddle, the film revolved around two colleagues Ved and Ali, who on Eid, take a road trip from Delhi to Lucknow. Lucknow is Ali’s hometown, and he takes Ved along, after making an excuse to his boss that his mother was unwell, and that he was suffering from Cervical Spondylosis, so he needed Ved to drive him around the hospitals. To kill time, Ali asks Ved a riddle – a woman receives a parcel in the morning and the same evening she dies. The rest of the journey is Ved’s imagination which takes a wild tour. Everything that Ved imagines is shown to the viewers, who with him, attempt to resolve the cause of the death. Until in the end when Ved solves the murder mystery, witnessing the murder in front of his very eyes. The film ends with the lines, ‘When you read a story, do you write on in your mind? Yes, No Maybe.’ The heart of the film is the lady – Zareena – who gets murdered. Through the film, she dies several times, in many ways. She is also seen as several characters – a nurse, a police officer, an air hostess, a glamourous secretary, an artiste and a young Muslim woman who lives with an old lover.
UK Film Review had this to say about the film: “What Titus Upputuru created with Parcel was a stroke of genius for HarperCollins. A superb way to promote storytelling in book-form. Not to mention the wonderfully textured score by Rupert Fernandes, which blissfully flows from one scene to the next, changing slightly with the mood set by Ved’s wild guesses. Who doesn’t love reading stories and making up the details in their mind? Most of the time, your ideas are vastly different from those of the author, but there’s fun to be found even in that.”
Upputuru said: “It wasn’t an easy film to direct as there was so much going on. Every scene, every dialogue had to be visualized, there was a long road trip of the two protagonists, and then there was the murder scene. When we were shooting it, we had no idea that it would become so successful. I never thought I was doing something so special. On hindsight it was very challenging, but by God’s help, I never felt the pressure. I received extremely flattering messages and mails from across the world, from the US, the UK, Russia, Japan…, it was amazing. I am grateful for the opportunity. Ananth and team were such a great support. Hurmat, Vyom and Riya were amazing cast to work with. The entire crew was very efficient, and we had many adventures while shooting it. And I want to specially thank Harry, Vineet and Shurjo to take up the daunting task of bringing my vision out in such elaborate detail.”
Behind the scenes photos:
