Direct Mail
Client Sameer Seth
Brand The Bombay Canteen
Entrant Please See//
Brief The Bombay Canteen is a café & bar that prides itself on re-creating local dishes and reinterpreting age-old traditions. As one of the very first restaurants to open in Kamla Mills, there was a lot of hype around their food, but their bar didn’t get as much attention. Our objective was to target the office going corporates’ situated around the area and invite them in for a drink, or two.
Cultural Context We twisted the elitist American ‘bottle service’ concept around to create the common man’s bottle service; or as we like to call it, ‘The Pauwa Service’. The inspiration was the original ‘Pauwa’, which is an iconic staple for the common Indian drinker. It is essentially a quarter of a litre of any alcohol, from a branded bottle of Old Monk to a recycled plastic bottle of locally made alcohol.
Solution
Each Pauwa was a personal invite for our champions and their employees to come and unwind at the restaurant post work. The Pauwa became a reward for the hard work the champions put into their jobs. It also solidified the brand as a drinking option. Most of all, the Pauwas’ were designed to be attractive; to sit on our champion’s desk after use, which builds the brand in the professional space.
Insight Most bars around Bombay have the ‘happy hour’ concept but we wanted to create a unique Indian version for The Bombay Canteen; ‘The Pauwa Service’ was born. With the theme of recreation, we created our own versions of cocktails and Pauwas’ in unique packaging. These bottles became our Direct Mail pieces which we sent to employees in Kamla Mills, to entice them to try something new, yet familiar.