Mumbai : Founded in 2019, Mumbai based production house Jungle has craved its own identity for its enthusiastic storytelling and a cracker visual aesthetic.
Jungle co-founder Gaurav Banerjee spoke to Indiantelevision.com and talked about helping brands with spreading social messages through videos
Banerjee has worked in advertising, event management, and government consultancies, before focusing on his twin passions - brands and story-telling.
Banerjee brings a wealth of knowledge about youth passion points, a keen ear for music, an eye for untold tales, and the ability to blend them all into compelling brand stories, having helmed the branded content vertical for the Viacom18 Youth and Music roster, which includes channels such as MTV, Vh1, Comedy Central, and Colors Infinity, and over ten years of experience in the field of brand solutions.
Edited Exceprts
On the journey
Jungle was formally registered in late 2019. This obviously means that the first thing we did together was to try and survive the lockdown. We actually hit the floor around October 2020, with the KKR Anthem at the time. Over the past two years though, we’ve had a great run as a pedigree advertising production house, covering a plethora of brands as well as narrative genres.
The main reason for establishing Jungle was to try and make something different in the field of visual content – for ads, films, web series. Not just visually fresh and different, but also thematically disruptive.
On the name Jungle
The name ‘Jungle’ itself was chosen as it represents something raw, undiscovered, and wild. Which is what our efforts have been the past two years – to inject a degree of excitement and freshness into our visuals and narratives, help our brand partners push the edge so to speak.
Simply put, in the short format world, we’re in the business of providing a unique visual identity to each brand we work with. In the long format world, we aim to help our channel partners tell interesting Indian stories. We’ve been described as ‘unexpectedly Indian’ by some of our partners, and that’s basically the point of difference we’d like to maintain. All of the co-founders here at Jungle have a brand/channel background, which helps us understand the creative needs of our partners, and craft a creative vision which is ultimately rewarding both for us and our partners.
On the noteworthy work
We’ve made films for brands across a plethora of categories. Auto, fashion, alcobev, technology, beauty, jewellery, lifestyle– we’ve shot for reputed brands such as VW, Tata, NBA, HP, Budweiser, Vivo, Tanishq, Bhima. Overall, we have shot films for more than 20 brands over the last couple of years. Most recently, we’ve just released a film for Vivo featuring Sara Ali Khan.
On the balance between entertainment and social message
The reason people skip ads they haven’t seen previously is because they already know the message, and they also know what’s coming up next in the story. There’s just so much content out there that everything has started looking like everything else. The heart of the idea will always be the social message – the innermost layer of the onion. Entertainment is the medium to express this message, and our endeavor is to make the medium as appealing, disruptive, new, and engaging as possible.
On MTV experience leverage
While I’d always been interested in music as well as off-kilter content, MTV taught me how to best bring these interests into the world of film. Never afraid of experimentation, MTV gave me the freedom to find my own style as a director. Also, given MTV’s general brand of irreverent humour, my years there taught me that there’s always a new, unexpected way of looking at any subject. MTV was my film school in many ways, and everything that I learnt there helped me prepare for the world outside the channel.
On 2023 content slate
For the last two years, our efforts have primarily been focused on advertising. Now that we’ve thankfully built a solid reputation as an advertising production house, we’ve started working on other, more adventurous projects. Our priority for 2023 is to amp up our short format division – where we collaborate with brands and create short films as well as music videos around various super interesting topics. Additionally, we’ve already invested in creating a wealth of film and series ideas, which are in various stages of discussions with channels. 2023 should be the year where we can successfully branch out into non-advertising spheres and build Jungle as a comprehensive studio, not just an advertising production house.
