elling plywood was never a seductive proposition. Kitply, probably the oldest known plywood advertiser on Indian television, harped on the obvious, and therefore uninspiring, factors of durability and termite-resistance. The 21-year-old Kolkata-based Greenply Industries (maker of Greenlam laminates and Greenply plywood) wasn�t thinking any differently when it conjured up the new TVC for its plywood brand. Where it did make a departure, though, was in the execution.

The TVC begins with the shot of a Sikh family travelling through a village somewhere in Tamil Nadu. Just as the bus passes an old bungalow, the kid screams out in flawless Tamil urging the driver to stop. As if in a daze, his parents alight and follow him into the house. The kid looks around and identifies himself in a dead man�s portrait. He even recognises the scroll he had made on a wooden study table in his earlier incarnation as the master of the house. As his past life comes back to him, the kid calls out to Savithri, his widowed and yet- alive wife. The ad ends with the teary-eyed old lady, Savithri, falling at her swami�s feet, while the kid�s mother faints in shock. The tagline says: "Janam Janam Ka Saathi - Greenply".... more