Air Deccan

One of my fondest memories from over 2 decades in advertising is my meeting with R K Laxman. And that happened thanks to an account whose creative responsibilities I was handed in December 2003 at Orchard Advertising.

Air Deccan.

Air Deccan travelled with the reputation of being a difficult account to handle. It came to me after wearing out a couple of other teams. I was delighted; in Air Deccan, I saw a business that I could write my heart out on. It gave me a reason to continue at Orchard and opened the doors to what has been the most enjoyable phase of my advertising career. 

Captain Gopinath always talked about Air Deccan being the 'common man's airline'. And the image that popped into my head every time I heard those words was of a balding man, with a thick moustache, wearing spectacles, a regular in the Times of India. Heck, he even looked like Captain Gopinath.

So I popped that bespectacled, balding man onto an Air Deccan ad with the help of Sagar Prajapati, my art partner at Orchard, and popped it in front of Captain Gopinath.

Approved!

It was decided that I would travel with Captain Gopinath to Pune to meet R K Laxman, to obtain his permission for the use of his Common Man in Air Deccan's advertising. 

That evening I went to a nearby Crossword and bought 6 books - all compilations of R K Laxman's work over the years. Early next morning I flew to Bombay, where I was to connect with Captain Gopinath for the next leg of the journey from Bombay to Pune.

Captain Gopinath, the camera crew and I, crowded into a rickety little charter plane that looked like its best miles were well behind it. I was very relieved when we landed in Pune in one piece. A waiting taxi took us to the Laxman residence and soon I got to shake hands with the great man.

Filter coffee and some delicious South Indian food later, I handed him the art boards I had carried. Mr. Laxman agreed to allow Air Deccan the use of the sketch (featured in the above ad) for a sum of 1 rupee. I got all my R K Laxman authored books autographed for free.

Click HERE, if you'd like to see some of the other ads I'd written which we did not get Mr. Laxman's permission to run.

Captain Gopinath and I, then rushed back to the airport. We were too late to catch the last commercial flight out of Pune for that evening, but Captain Gopinath had his private plane waiting. We flew Pune-Bangalore through clear skies and landed in Bangalore close to midnight.

A long, gleaming white car (I think it was a Rolls) waited on the tarmac. Captain Gopinath gave me a ride to the Orchard office in Indiranagar, Bangalore, where my colleagues and I worked through the night to prepare for the next day's press conference.

The following day, the identity of Air Deccan's new brand ambassador was revealed to the world.