When Happydent Palace beamed its way to Cannes Lions glory

At the outset of the Happydent Palace ad, a man pedals hastily across a hand‑built wooden bridge—only for the bicycle’s front wheel to detach unexpectedly and fall into the water. Racing against time, he dashes toward the king’s palace.

What follows is nothing short of spectacular: instead of streetlights, humans form glowing pillars of light using their radiant smiles. The ensuing spectacle turned the creative concept of lighting a palace with teeth into advertising history.

At the Cannes Lions International Festival of Creativity 2007, Happydent Palace swept up two Film Lions: a Silver Lion in the “Sweet Foods & Snacks” sub‑category, and a Bronze Lion for “Best Use of Music.”

Genesis

Perfetti Van Melle, parent company of the brand Happydent, approached McCann Worldgroup to conceptualise an ad film for the chewing gum brand.

The brief explained then was to follow an international commercial of theirs which was about a girl going on a date and using Happydent for a whiter, yet brighter teeth and smile, stated a media report.

However, the agency and the creative team decided to follow another route, which would bring continued glory to the brand.

McCann Worldgroup’s CEO and chief creative officer Prasoon Joshi reached out to Ram Madhvani, co-founder, Equinox Films—who were already busy conceptualizing other campaigns—for the Happydent ad. Madhvani, who was one of the options apart from the other film directors Joshi was considering, requested time to develop a storyboard for the campaign.

When Madhvani got back and got into brainstorming, he came up with the idea of basing the story in the British colonial era in India and it to be a montage film. However, Joshi suggested that the ad film flow in the narrative format, which was about a person who is late to light up the king’s dinner.

As the conversation deepened, Madhvani—working closely with storyboard artist Chetan Sharma (co-founder and director of the animation studio Animagic)—continued refining the storyboard. It was at this point that it was decided to realise the story on ‘screen’.

One of the key challenges for Madhvani was “how to make the surreal idea stand out as ‘real’” and make people believe that it was not some sort of a magical place but a world that actually existed.

In one scene, there is an old woman who straight dives into the swimming pool. Here, Madhvani in a conversation with Storyboard18 stated that the water was so dirty and they had to push the shooting for the next day.

Traditional Mallakhamb experts from Shivaji Park in Dadar performed the “human streetlights” in the ad, forming towering pole formations. Many of the graceful dance postures featured in the film were contributed by dancers from Kerala.

In the opening scene of the ad film, a wooden bridge is shown, which was actually built by the production team, where one of the 'human' lights for the chandelier is speedily rushing in his bicycle till the front wheel comes off and falls in the river.

A few weeks prior to the shooting of the ad, Madhvani’s brother Nrupen had purchased a bicycle which actually came off, resulting in the director making use of it in the film.

Madhvani recollected that there was no pressure in terms of wrapping up the shoot within the prescribed time limit which in turn gave flexibility and took six months to effectively wrap up the making of the film.

Joshi wrote the lyrics ‘Tera dil roshan, tera man roshan’, the music was given by musician Shantanu Moitra, and singer Kailash Kher sang the song.

An 85 second ad was presented to the client, instead of a 60 second ad, which was originally commissioned. However, the client said, “Show me the 85 second ad. I am fine with it.”

The 85 second ad was released on the weekend premiere of the Bollywood film ‘Bunty Aur Babli’. The response received was so phenomenal that when Madhvani was at Ogilvy for discussions regarding another brand, everybody in the corridor stood up and clapped.

Madhvani recollected an anecdote, where he was simultaneously shooting for two ads for two different brands. In one studio, he was with Joshi and Moitra recording for Happydent Palace. And in the other studio, he was with music composer duo Vishal-Shekhar.

When they arrived at the Happydent Palace recording, they urged Madhvani to be a part of it. “The claps that one can hear in the ad film for the Qawwali are by Vishal-Shekhar,” stated Madhvani.

Along with winning accolades at Cannes Lions, the ad film was recognized by The Gunn Report in December 2015, based on a global public poll, as one of the 20 best ads of the 21st century.

Read More: Prasoon Joshi and Nikhil Sharma on how a chewing gum brand rekindled the love for imaginative advertising