Xerxes Desai sets out to create India’s first world-class watchmaking company in ‘Made in India: A Titan Story.’ At first, Titan, a Tata Group-backed venture, faces many challenges just to get to the development aspect of the business. However, once they’ve crossed the bridge, the next big hurdle arrives: actually selling enough pieces to match the ambition of the project. This is when Murli Shankar Dalmia enters the narrative as the new head of marketing at the company. Even though his entrance demotes Megha Mhatre, one of Titan’s earliest employees, his inclusion eventually pays off for both the young marketing executive and the watch company. Notably, he contributed significantly to the brand’s first and most memorable television advertisement.
Murli Shankar Dalmia’s Storyline Parallels Titan’s Real-Life Collaboration With Ogilvy & Mather and Suresh Mullick
‘Made in India: A Titan Story’ presents a dramatized yet biographical account of Xerxes Desai, the founder of Titan and its first managing director. The series takes place in the 1980s, when the Indian watchmaking company was in its earliest conceptual days. In order to maintain authenticity and historical accuracy, the project seeks out a basis in historical records as well as Vinay Kamath’s 2018 book ‘Titan: Inside India’s Most Successful Consumer Brand.’ Even so, the series isn’t an exact recreation of reality and ends up retaining plenty of creative liberty in terms of storyline and characterizations. Murli Shankar Dalmia seems to be the more fictitious element in the show.
In real life, there are no records of Titan’s history with a similarly christened marketing executive. Instead, Vibha Paul Rishi, the inspiration behind the character of Megha Mhatre, appears to be the central marketing figurehead in the company’s history. Still, Murli’s character and his narrative aren’t entirely fictitious in nature. Through his introduction and ensuing storyline, the series explores Titan’s real-life historical advertisement campaign from the mid-1980s. At the time, the company was working on an ad campaign to cement the watchmaking brand’s identity in the country and beyond. The biggest question in this strategy centered around the soundtrack that would accompany the advertisement.
Ultimately, Titan came out with its iconic television ad soundtracked by Mozart’s 25th Symphony. This would go on to define the company’s identity for decades to come. In real life, Desai collaborated with the New York City-based British advertising agency Ogilvy & Mather in the creation of this specific campaign. Notably, one of the marketing executives from the other company, Suresh Mullick, had a prominent hand in the eventual selection of the campaign’s musical and visual components. In that sense, Mullick presents the closest counterpart to Murli’s on-screen character. Yet, the two share more differences than similarities, casting the real-life marketing executive as a potential loose inspiration.
Suresh Mullick Passed Away in 2003
In ‘Made in India: A Titan Story,’ Murli’s character is employed to tell the real-life story of the inception of Titan’s association with the recognizable symphony from its earliest television advertisement campaign. Yet, outside of the same, his character shares little in common with Suresh Mullick, the real-life marketing executive who is responsible for the marriage between Mozart’s 25th Symphony and Titan, India’s world-class watchmaking company. In real life, Mullick was the creative head at Ogilvy & Mather. Over the course of his illustrious career, the marketing executive created numerous memorable campaigns. He produced the national integration advertisement, which ran on Doordarshan, the country’s only TV channel, on August 15, 1988, India’s 42nd Independence Day.
In the 1980s, Mullick also created several short films for Doordarshan and the ‘Mile Sur Mera Tumhara’ song, promoting the country’s musical scene. He also had a notable hand in the relaunch campaign of Cadbury Dairy Milk in 1981. Mullick’s ear for music in particular has been credited as one of the defining aspects of his success in marketing. His contribution to Ogilvy & Mather’s work in that time period became foundational to the advertising agency’s eventual success and notoriety. Unfortunately, in his early 60s, Mullick was diagnosed with a protracted illness, which eventually became the cause of his death on March 10, 2003, a day before what would have been his 63rd birthday. In his departure, the marketing legend is remembered in the memory of his mother, two sisters, and his loved ones.
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