Isko Laga Dala Toh Life Jingalala: How Tata Sky’s idea became iconic

This goes back to the mid‑2000s. At that time, the Tata Sky account had been handled by Rediffusion DY&R for nearly two years.

Around then, research into consumer incentives revealed that Tata Sky needed to address a far broader audience across the country. Ashish Khazanchi—then recently joined as ECD at Rediffusion DY&R (later managing partner at Enormous)—was assigned to revive the brand’s fortunes.

India was a market heavily reliant on cable television, which suffered from service issues. Satellite (DTH) brands were well poised to bridge the gaps that cable could not.

According to a blog post on Only Kutts, Rediffusion’s brief was to showcase the multiple advantages of having Tata Sky at home, and to simplify the concept of DTH for consumers. But in a conversation with Storyboard18, Khazanchi recalled that they believed the brand was more than just technology—they wanted to show how it improved people's lives: “Their entertainment itself was getting a huge upgrade in the way one was consuming television. It was going to change for the better.”

Hence, the positioning shifted away from technical specs to a narrative centered on entertainment—and that became the campaign baseline. The developmental work on the re‑positioning took roughly a year.

Initially, the creative team explored themes like “enhanced picture quality” and “watching a cricket match from different angles.” During ideation, they landed on the phrase Dish Nahin, Dishkyaun hai Yeh, playing on the word “dish.” When presented to Tata Sky executives (Meenal Sharma, Vikram Mehra, Vikram Kaushik, and Vikrant Mudaliar), there was hesitation: as a Tata brand, they felt it was not their style to take a dig at competitors (i.e. Dish TV). However, in the creative logic, the “dish” was physical, not a brand jab.

Khazanchi then conceived the line: “Isko laga dala, toh life jingalala.”

He recounted that many campaign scripts were drafted on the way to client meetings. One night, he called KS Chakravarthy (senior creative at Rediffusion DY&R) at midnight, laughing over the line he had just come up with—and Chakravarthy loved it.

What made this campaign especially challenging was that it needed buy‑in not only from Tata Sky’s internal team, but also from the boards of Tata Sons, Star TV Network, and Star TV Hong Kong—since all were involved in the Tata Sky entity. Convincing stakeholders across nationalities and layers of decision‑making required strong conviction and belief in the idea.

Khazanchi led the creative team, working alongside Akash Das, Nikhil Panjwani, Ekta Doctor, and Hemant Anand Jain. The account management team included Mahesh Chauhan, Samarth Shrivastava, Ajay Varma, Miraj Khan, and Triyambak Das Gupta.

For about a year, the campaign ran with virtually no celebrity endorsers, except for a few promo spots featuring Hrithik Roshan. The ads were directed by the acclaimed ad film director Ram Madhvani. The campaign’s launch coincided with a major cricket tournament, which amplified its reach. The catchy line “Isko laga dala toh life jingalala” caught on and became emblematic of Tata Sky’s positioning.

Khazanchi later reflected, “When I was put on the account, I had to pause everything else. But I knew—this campaign was going to be a headstone. One that would be remembered, telecasted for years.”

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