The first edition of the ‘Marriage Conversations’ campaign by Tanishq released in 2021 was originally conceived with five different scenarios – five couples-to-be, each engaged in a difficult but critical conversation before embarking on a married life together. The team at Dentsu Webchutney, with Binaifer Dulani (now with Talented) handling creative, zeroed in on Kopal Naithani of Superfly Films to direct them. The power of the idea was incredible and its impact on her profound, recalls Naithani. It was her first film for the brand. “I just heard the idea and I was in love. I felt that this was the advertising I had been waiting for. Directing for Tanishq was always an aspiration of mine. While I had got scripts for the brand earlier, the first one to materialse was ‘Marriage Conversations’. That made it extra special,” says the director and founder, who started directing ad films in 2010 and launched her production house in 2016.

She explains, “We brought our personal experiences into it. We eventually decided to make just three scenarios, choosing themes that were real and resonant. We went into every detail and made quite a few changes as we went along. The feedback after launch was overwhelming. And later I was told it also won the Laadli Award for Gender Sensitivity. While I had not heard of the awards before that, I realised that it’s not an award you can enter — organisers actually sift through the sea of work and recognise work for gender sensitivity. Winning on that front makes it a prestigious recognition.”

Naithani’s work was recognised on the Laadli Awards stage again for Tanishq (Superwoman, 2023); Urban Company (Choti Soch, 2024); Titan (Aage Badegi, 2025, which she did not direct but produced); and Tanishq (Her Choice, 2025).

The filmmaker, who started off as costume assistant at Nagesh Kukunoor’s Hyderabad Blues, spent a few years as costume stylist before working her way up to assistant director with filmmaker-producer-director Shoojit Sircar, and eventually emerged as director. She had never studied film academically. She recalls that when she started directing ad films, there were only a handful of female directors and technicians. She realised the value of mentoring on being selected as part of the first cohort of 'Cannes Lions’ ‘See It Be It’ talent programme to accelerate female and non-binary talent in advertising.

“I’ve had a tough path to becoming a director, and then within that finding my own identity. It’s been a very long journey to creating my own space and I think it all started with ‘Marriage Conversations’. At ‘See It Be It’ I realised the value of having a mentor and the enormous difference it makes. I was possibly the oldest person in the cohort and maybe the only ad film director. I realised that if I had that kind of mentoring 15 years earlier, my career might have been quite different,” she notes.

She set up ‘She Directs Ads’ to enable such mentoring for upcoming women ad film directors and technicians in 2025. She believes that while there has been a lot of action from brands promoting gender-centric conversations, platforms like Laadli still have a lot to do.

“Every brand today needs to stand for something. Sometimes, how they choose to express themselves may prove counter-productive to the cause they seek to highlight. That’s where real sensitivity comes in — there is a need to spotlight what has been done right and what could be done better. I understand that Laadli also engages with the creative and media communities to sensitise them, besides organising the Laadli awards. It’s equally important today that ad films are not just championing causes but also nuanced, for which such engagement is critical,” signs off Naithani.

Naithani will be among adlanders willing to make the time for such efforts. For she believes that there is still room for change that initiatives like Laadli champion.

This story is part of Laadli’s impact report @21, shared for online publication exclusively with Manifest Media. Download the full report here.