Wedding Wishlist, What’s Your Problem call for end to useless wedding gifts

Newly launched Wedding Wishlist, in association with their creative agency What’s Your Problem Brand Solutions, recently launched their first digital film and content, which was created out of an activation program-cum-social experiment. Wedding Wishlist allows prospective couples to share a list of desired wedding gifts with their guests and receive the gifts they truly need.

It all began when Kanika Subbiah, CEO and Founder of Wedding Wishlist, was in a conversation with a frustrated friend – frustrated because she had received a pile of useless gifts at her wedding. “Too big, too garish, too…everything,” said the friend. The couple only chose four gifts out of the 200-odd gifts they received. But they ended up writing 200 thank you notes for the guests and shopping for items to set up their new house. “Every day in India, thousands of married couples receive unnecessary gifts at their nuptials. Most of these gifts join the recycle pile that every Indian home has or lie unused at the back of someone’s closet,” said Subbiah. To find a solution to this problem and bridge the gift divide – the immense gap between gifts received and gifts desired – Subbiah launched the web portal Wedding Wishlist in February 2016.

As part of the campaign, ‘Wedding gift scanners’ were placed at select weddings. These scanners were X-Ray machines, the kind one sees at airport security, where the gifts had to be kept on a belt and then scanned. These were manned by ‘Wedding Gift Inspectors’, who checked the quality of each gift and marked the gifts against the entering guests. When guests understood that their gifts were actually being checked for quality, they were shocked. Some resisted the checking, most were surprised but relented, some found it rude. At which point the ‘Wedding Gift Inspectors’ revealed that this was all a joke, that they were actors and that there were hidden cameras capturing it all. They took the opportunity to explain to the guests that ‘Wedding Gift Scanners’ and ‘Gift Inspectors’ weren’t obviously the solution but ‘Wedding Wishlist’, which allowed couples to make a list of gifts that they needed and shared with their friends was great way out. This way guests could give couples gifts they actually needed and cherished. These reactions were captured on hidden cameras placed across the wedding entrance, amongst flower arrangements, décor, etc. The footage captured created a two-and-a-half-minute film released on social media. The film ended with the message and hashtag – There’s an easier way to avoid useless wedding gifts - #AvoidUselessWeddingGifts.

Amit Akali, Managing Director and Creative Head, What’s Your Problem, explained, “This is not a typical ad film, it’s a social experiment and activation, which doubles up as content and a digital video. And it makes the point in a very real yet entertaining way. Obviously, couples can’t employ ‘Gift Inspectors’ at their weddings to keep useless gifts away, but they surely can register their wedding on Wedding Wishlist, select the gifts they want and share it with their friends. Wedding Wishlist is a new, but much needed concept in India. And therefore, it was important that we introduced it in an attention grabbing way.”

Huzefa Roowala, Director – Content and Creative, What’s Your Problem, added here, “We wanted to deliver the proposition of Wedding Wishlist – Useless wedding gifting habit in a unique, fun way that made the prospective clients experience the need first hand. So we created a social experiment in the form of an activation. To pull this off in real time we worked with Baraka Productions’ Nishant Nayak and Mithun Gangopadhyay, who have worked on reality shows like ‘Bakra’ and ‘Date Trap’. The social experiment was designed to deliver stimuli to instigate the guests via ‘Wedding Inspectors’. The guests were caught completely unawares and were surprised, which helped drive through Wedding Wishlist as a fantastic solution to their useless wedding gifting habit. The surprise and candidness of the film makes it an interesting film to watch, one that you’ll hopefully share.”