• A hilarious take on traditional innerwear ads, DaMENSCH Innerwear Therapy introduces a concept to Indian advertising that we’ve only seen in the likes of films like Inception from Christopher Nolan: “Ad within an ad within an ad”
• Innerwear Therapy is also the first time comedians Rohan Joshi, Aadar Malik, Vineeth and Nas from Jordindian and Nirmal Pillai will be seen together for a brand campaign
• The campaign is conceptualised & written by creative agency Talented and produced in partnership with Dot Dot Boom films
DaMENSCH, a premium men’s fashion brand today unveiled a quirky digital-first campaign ‘The Innerwear Therapy’ with India’s most talented comedians Rohan Joshi, Adar Malik, Jordindians, and Nirmal Pillai. The series of three ad films are in line with the company’s mission to focus on the most neglected and challenging part of the male wardrobe – ‘The Innerwear’. With a trend-setting concept – inception within these ad films see comedians reacting to watching themselves while playing a role in it. Confused? Read on.
The ad film begins with Adar Malik seated on his couch watching television when he gets awestruck by a commercial that says “Soft Stretchy Odourless AF, The Innerwear Therapy Collection by DaMENSCH”. Rohan who is under the blanket taking steam gets distracted by Adar’s curiosity and asks does this ad have a macho man or a metaverse scene, or is there a celebrity comeback? Adar in frustration, replies “When your innerwear has 7% elastane, a Supima-Modal blend, and Odour cancellation tech…why do you need a celebrity?” At this point, Rohan lifts up the blanket and agrees with Adar suggesting that “Celebrities have become irrelevant these days!”
The second ad opens with Rohan wrapped in a blanket on his sofa with Adar seated beside him watching the commercial by DaMENSCH. While Rohan is surprised at Adar being intrigued by an ad that literally just says ‘Soft. Stretchy. Odorless. AF’, Adar defends the ad! We’re zoomed out to the living room of the Jordindians. As Nas checks out DaMENSCH’s website, Vineeth realizes they are in the ad too with the DaMENSCH logo and product window around them.
In the third ad, we see Rohan surprised to get the DaMENSCH ad again and again. Cut out and Vineeth and Nas also wonder why they are still seeing Rohan and Aadar’s ad as they too have bought the collection already. Just then, Nirmal also comes in and says that he hadn’t bought the collection yet and gets a blaming stare from Jordindians. We are now in Nirmal’s bedroom where he is seeing himself in the same DaMENSCHad along with Jordindians, finally understanding the concept – an ad within an ad within an ad.
The ad series is made even more interesting by turning the camera on the audience reaction, here enacted by the likes of Rohan Joshi and Adar – who make sure to poke a little fun at conventional macho-istic men’s innerwear advertising. With an innovative product, DaMENSCH has made sure to step into an innovative storytelling format that simply builds on product strength without even showing the product once.
Also read: How DaMENSCH Is Building India
Speaking about the campaign, Deepti Karthik, Senior Vice President, Marketing – DaMENSCH commented, “With the Innerwear Therapy campaign film, we have tried to create a perfect blend of subtle advertising with a pinch of quirkiness. At DaMENSCH we have the largest innerwear collection and they are so comfortable that it almost feels like therapy. The ad film perfectly encapsulates how innerwear can excite the audience through creative advertising. It is important that we communicate with the audience in their language and through personalities, they relate with. Hence the essence of this campaign is brought alive by using India’s top comedians Rohan Joshi, Adar Malik, Jordindians and Nirmal Pillai. Their intelligent humor and niche audience set that they cater to allow our brand voice to resonate perfectly.”
Speaking about the campaign, PG Aditiya, Co-Founder at Talented, said: “The idea to do an ad inception has been in our heads for a while, inspired by tons of films and work from abroad. To combine that with even more meta-industry narratives was the icing on the cake. The whole series is a nod to scrappily-executed performance videos that do the heavy-lifting for the bulk of D2C Indian startups and flood our YouTube pre-rolls. We buy what’s advertised not because of the ads, but usually because of how good the products actually are. As customers of DaMENSCH ourselves, we could vouch for the products. So our question to Deepti and Siddharth from DaMENSCH was simple – “Do you care about what your ads are? Or how people react right after watching them?” When they responded with the latter, we knew this idea had found its brand.”
