Khushboo Kuchh Khaas

The creative turn

How do you show a smell? Kohinoor's 2023 film answers with an orchestral idea rather than a spoken explanation. DDB Tribal and director Prakash Varma use music, theatrical performance and visual composition to express basmati aroma. The reported execution avoids dialogue and voiceover. Its creative leap is a translation between senses, not a demonstration that viewers can actually smell the product.

Editorial interpretation: aroma and music share a vocabulary of layers, sequence and harmony, making the metaphor intelligible without requiring a literal match. The craft challenge is to retain the product connection while giving the imagined experience room to unfold. Too much explanation would flatten the performance into a diagram; too little could leave an attractive film with no clear proposition. This is a useful case for examining how an abstract quality becomes an organising principle for the whole execution. It also shows why an elegant metaphor should not be treated as evidence of sensory superiority. The film can communicate what the brand wants people to imagine, while actual product evaluation remains a separate matter.

The report establishes the execution and creator roles, not universal interpretation, sensory testing or sales effects. Claims that the work communicates identically across audiences are promotional expectations, not measured findings.

Find a structural resemblance, not a decorative comparison

A metaphor becomes useful when two things share a relationship, not simply a mood. A layered service might be explained through parts that enter in sequence; a coordinated process through distinct roles working together. Identify that relationship before selecting the visual style. For a fictional project-planning tool, an ensemble could represent dependencies between tasks, but only if the audience can tell which part affects another. Otherwise the performance is merely decorative. Write the connection in plain language first, then decide which details the visual needs and which would distract from the central resemblance.

Choose one attribute to organise the craft

An abstract film can become overloaded if every shot introduces a new product claim. Select the attribute that determines movement, pace, sound and framing, then make the other information subordinate. This does not mean hiding necessary details; it means distinguishing the emotional introduction from the practical explanation. A small team can storyboard the idea with simple shapes before commissioning elaborate production. If the organising principle is not legible in that rough form, expensive craft may amplify the ambiguity. The early question is whether each scene develops the same idea rather than merely adding visual richness.

Check what survives without the dominant sense

A sound-led metaphor may fail when muted, while a visual performance may be inaccessible without description. Provide an equivalent route to the intended idea rather than assuming the experience is universal. A short written explanation can clarify the attribute without reproducing the entire artistic treatment. Compare what different formats communicate and acknowledge where they differ. Accessibility review can reveal a strategic weakness as well as a delivery problem: if the message disappears when one sensory layer is removed, the advertiser may need a clearer product connection rather than simply louder music or more elaborate movement.

Try the mechanism on another brief

Proposed adaptation: an imaginary scheduling tool could use original geometric shapes entering a shared timeline to explain coordination. Create a silent storyboard, a text description and a simple original sound sketch with no borrowed composition. Ask six consenting adults to explain the relationship between the parts and the feature they think is being offered. Compare the metaphor with a literal process diagram. No real scheduling performance is claimed. The exercise asks whether translating a relationship into another sensory form makes it understandable, while preserving an accessible explanation for people who do not experience the dominant format.

Record the attribute readers infer, details that appear decorative and any performance claims they mistakenly believe were demonstrated. Keep the version that explains the relationship with the fewest unsupported implications. Appreciation of the craft is a separate observation from comprehension.

Stop if the sensory metaphor is presented as a test result or if the product disappears behind the performance. Restore a clear, limited explanation and an equivalent non-sensory route.