Swiggy’s screenlife ad for Valentine’s Day is a winner

Swiggy’s Valentine’s Day 2023 ad film by the agency Talented is possibly* (see update at the end of this post) India’s first ad that uses the screenlife format.

Screenlife is a visual narrative device that tells the story using a digital screen, on a phone, a tablet, or a computer.

The most famous example of screenlife in advertising is Google’s November 2009 ad called ‘Parisian Love’. It has since become THE reference for all other ads that use screenlife format.

Spotify, through its agency Droga5 tried the screenlife format for its ads shown only in cinema theaters (not available online now) in 2014.

Google has since released 2 sequels to Parisian Love. The one in 2014 was for Google Chrome, titled ‘Dear Sophie’.

And the latest one was for the Super Bowl in 2020, called ‘Loretta’.

Of course, screenlife format has been used in movies too, most famously in Russian-Kazakh director Timur Bekmambetov’s ‘Unfriended’ in 2014, Aneesh Chaganty directed ‘Searching’, in 2018, and the Indian film, C U Soon, starring Fahadh Faasil, directed by Mahesh Narayanan, in 2020.

The main difference between Google’s ‘Parisian Love’ and ‘Dear Sophie’ ads and Swiggy’s is the additional narrative devices utilized beyond the digital screen. Google’s 2 ads choose just background music, while Swiggy’s ad uses dialog spoken by the characters, to each other. In comparison, Google’s Loretta has dialogs spoken by the lead character, but to Google itself, to showcase voice recognition!

If you look beyond some of the contrivances and liberties taken in the Swiggy ad, the narrative is full of heart, understandably so given this is a love story meant for Valentine’s Day.

Unlike Google’s ads that completely used only Google products’ UI to tell their stories, Swiggy’s ad cannot afford to do that and has to necessarily pick on other app UI shots to build its narrative. So you have first-person video shots of the plane landing, the kitchen of the new home being seen, scenes at the restaurant, chat windows, among others.

But within what the narrative manages to incorporate Swiggy’s many features, it does a wonderful job!

The ‘saved address’ feature is my favorite since it opens the ad and offers a fantastic Valentine’s Day-specific closure. I anticipated a shot of either Aashna or Raghav asking for the home wifi password and the possibilities within the wifi name to be explored, but considering they are far removed from Swiggy’s services, I understand why they were absent.

Instamart’s quick grocery delivery gets a chunk of screentime, understandably, given how popular the quick grocery segment now is. I really liked how the hesitation to type the wrong spelling for ‘deodorant’ leads organically to the voice search feature. Even more interesting is the fact that the search comes immediately after a date has been confirmed 🙂

A particularly lovely touch was the showcase of restaurants that the couple visit over time and how the restaurant photos become videos. This is a contrivance adopted within the screenlife format, no doubt, but it fits the storytelling really well in this case.

Aashna deleting a Tinder acquaintance’s address on Swiggy when Raghav asks ‘Are we a thing now?’, the first tiff when Aashna forgets a movie date, and her making it up by ordering home-cooked food via Swiggy, Raghav ordering chicken soup for Aashna when she’s sick… all the details smoothly segue into the love story.

That they made this a ‘North’ and ‘South’ love story (Aashna from Delhi, and Raghav from Kerala) is a particularly nice touch that says so much about Bengaluru’s cosmopolitan culture. And the small snapshot in adding a slightly deeper layer into the protagonist’s culture, like Aashna ordering ‘Pazhampori’ for Raghav, is especially welcome.

This happens fairly rarely in mainstream cinema. Ek Duje Ke Liye, for instance, in 1981. And then, after many years, you had Gori Tere Pyaar Mein (2013) – Imran is ‘Sriram Venkat’, Bangalore-based, and Kareena is ‘Dia Sharma’, Delhi-based.

The other winning touch is the amount of agency Aashna has in the relationship – after all, she is the one popping the question, “Move in with me?”, not Raghav!

And Raghav’s final parting shot is something that you have to hear for yourself 🙂

I really hope Swiggy builds on this film and takes the characters outside the screenlife format. Another screenlife film for the same characters would be an overkill.

For example, they could launch a model hunt to pick the best ‘Aashna’ and ‘Raghav’ from interested actors, models, and non-actors who want to become models.

They could create social media handles for Aashna and Raghav to continue their relationship through assorted utterances throughout the year.

Aashna and Raghav could be the face of digital ads by Swiggy through various occasions like Women’s Day, Independence Day, Diwali/Deepavali, the festive season towards the end of the year, and so on.

The couple could stumble into Gulab Jamun uncle under some pretext 🙂

The opportunity is limited only by the brand and agency’s imagination!

* Apparently it was Dunzo’s 2020 Women’s Day screenlife that could claim to be India’s first ad in using this format:

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