Dilanjan Seneviratne Shoots the Raban Mashup on an iPhone in Lockdown

Prima KottuMee's Avurudu campaign with Yohani, April 2020 | agency TBWA\Sri Lanka, audio by Redfox | One Show 2020 Asia-Pacific selection and SLIM-Kantar People's Advertisement of the Year 2022

In April 2020, with Sri Lanka under a COVID-19 curfew and film crews unable to move, Dilanjan Seneviratne shot Prima KottuMee's Raban Mashup himself, on an iPhone, for the Sinhala and Tamil New Year.

The campaign followed Yohani's appointment as Prima KottuMee's brand ambassador, announced on 26 February 2020. Within weeks the nationwide curfew of 20 March 2020 had shut down production across the country.

Dilanjan pitched the idea of a raban mashup that could be made under lockdown. He then shot Yohani's performance himself and sent the footage for edit.

The campaign was credited to the agency TBWA\Sri Lanka, with audio by Pasan Liyanage of Redfox Audio Productions. Highlights include:

The One Show 2020: selected for the Asia-Pacific showcase in the Social Media category, one of 134 entries from the region, the Daily FT reported.

Ad Stars 2020: a place in the top 20.

SLIM-Kantar People's Awards 2022: People's Advertisement of the Year.

The Raban Mashup showed a principle Dilanjan has worked by since his first cover with Yohani in 2016: when the usual means are gone, the idea and the camera still work. The Prima KottuMee partnership outlasted the pandemic and was extended in 2023.