O Stree, kal aana!” proclaimed the walls of Chanderi village in the 2018 blockbuster horror comedy film Stree, starring Rajkumar Rao and Shraddha Kapoor. The one-liner roughly translates to “O woman, come tomorrow”, a spell that the people of Chanderi would inscribe on their walls to ward off the ghost of the woman who haunts them.

Six years on, Wakefit’s latest ad is a sly redo of this highly popular line, likely inspired by the successful box office run of the film’s sequel Stree 2. “O neend, jaldi aana,” is Wakefit’s rendition of the phrase, roughly translating to “O sleep, come quickly.”

A group of travellers gathered in a village is seen around a bonfire when local villagers, played by Agu Stanley and Juli Sharma, approach them to narrate the story of ‘Sarphira’, a ghost who twisted his neck after enduring countless sleepless nights. The Sarphira now haunts the people who stay up late at night. Sarphira itself is a play on the original film villain named ‘Sarkata’.

Back to the ad: Sarphira appears before the group, who are all filled with fear, and in comes the saviour. It is Arun Singh, also known as Chote Miyan, who comes to the rescue with a hilariously unusual plan to save the day.

The idea is to send this ghost into a peaceful slumber, quite literally. In doing so, Singh plugs Wakefit’s mattresses, while enumerating its spine-comforting specs. You know the rest, the ghost drifts off to sleep and so does everyone else on, you guessed it, Wakefit’s mattresses.

The thing is, the ad itself is adequately complete in terms of the plot. There is a prelude, the setup, the confrontation, and finally the resolution. The runtime is two minutes and 36 seconds, clearly indicating that the ad has been created exclusively for digital platforms.

As such, all three of the influencers featured in the ad have taken to their social media handles to share the film, garnering thousands of likes. In fact, Agu and Singh have both shared a longer version of the ad film, with a runtime of nearly four minutes, padded up with extended scenes and dialogues.

By the way, this isn’t the first time Wakefit has copped a concept from a popular Bollywood film to create an ad. Just three months ago, it onboarded Bobby Deol in his Animal character as the protagonist of an ad. Prior to that, they even copied the iconic ‘70 minute’ dialogue from SRK’s Chak De India.

Author: Sonali Kamble