Storyboard18’s Brand Blitz Quiz, India’s First Panel Business Quiz, decided to have some fun with brand nerds from the Indian advertising and marketing community. We got Sai Ganesh, founder, India Wants to Know, and Varun Duggirala, founder, Plot Device Entertainment, to join us for the North Regional Final round on September 3.
During the North Regional final round, Ganesh asked which Indian organisation was the first of its kind to get the rights for Billy Joel’s ‘We didn’t start the fire’ for us in an ad campaign in 2014. One of the teams who go by the name “Going through a Faiz” came up with the right answer – Man se hai Mulayam by the Samajwadi Party.
Duggirala said, “It’s one of my favourite political surprises for that election. That’s the only way I look at this song now.”
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Almost 10 years ago, Mulayam Singh’s Samajwadi Party had bought the rights to Billy Joel’s popular song. To attract young voters, the party chose the American singer’s 1989 hit and adapted it into Hindi ahead of the 2014 general elections.
According to Javed Ali, who had sung the Hindi version of the hit, it was Akhilesh Yadav (Mulayam Singh Yadav’s son) who had bought the song’s rights. It was his idea to use the song as the party’s anthem. Apparently, the lyrics were reworked lyrics to portray the party’s ideologies.
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