Indians find it really hard to say no. We'd rather have a reason.
The insight
A plan we don't want to make, a favour we'd rather not do, an awkward conversation we need to escape. Somehow, “I can't” feels a lot easier when there’s a bahana attached to it. And we’ve become very good at making them. That gave us a rather interesting thought: what if the country’s most entertaining excuse maker could lend everyone a hand?
The brief
For the return of The Family Man after three years, there was already one thing audiences knew about Srikant Tiwari: give him a difficult situation and he’ll find a way to talk himself out of it.
His bahane have become as recognisable as the character himself, whether he’s dodging suspicion, wriggling out of trouble at home or covering up a mission.
The opportunity was sitting right there. Take that very Srikant trait out of the show and let people use it themselves.
What we did
We put an Excuse Generator inside Alexa. All people had to do was ask, “Alexa, make an excuse.”
What came back depended on how much trouble they were in. Something filmy. Something quirky. Maybe a little poetic. Or, if things were really bad, they could always blame the stars.
People started experiencing this across India : Srikant asking Alexa for help in the campaign film, large outdoor takeovers across Mumbai, Delhi and Bengaluru, and creators and meme pages putting the excuses to use in situations of their own.
