The ad that united Pakistan

Express Tribune

28-03-2025

In the early '90s, Pakistani television operated under strict limitations: two channels, PTV and NTM, prime-time slots dictated by state-owned networks, and increasing restrictions on cigarette advertising. Yet, within these confines, some commercials managed to transcend their purpose, becoming cultural artifacts rather than mere marketing ploys.
One such anomaly was Rhythm of Unity, a 1993 television ad that defied both time and format. Produced by Spectrum Communications for Morven Gold, it was commissioned by Lakson Group and became the biggest-budget TVC of its time. It was a commercial that never showed the product it was selling. Instead, it staged a grand visual and musical performance at Lahore Fort: folk dancers from all four provinces moving in unison, vibrant red and yellow fabric billowing, a dramatic soundtrack pulsing underneath.
A lone horse, draped in matching colours, rears up against the sky. The camera sweeps across the weathered stone of the fort, capturing flickers of movement - feet stamping against the ground, arms lifting in synchrony, the nakkara drum reverberating through the air. The final image sees the dancers converging in perfect formation, embodying the commercial's tagline: The Rhythm of Unity. Lakson.
A cigarette ad without cigarettes. Branding without a brand name. And yet, three decades later, Rhythm of Unity remains one of the most iconic commercials in Pakistan's history. To understand its enduring legacy, The Express Tribune spoke with the minds behind its making.
A tough landscape
By 1993, cigarette commercials were on borrowed time. New regulations had pushed them to the fringes of television, confined to post 10PM slots, effectively shutting them out of prime-time viewership.
"One of our business objectives was to be on prime time," recalled Zohra Yusuf, CCO of Spectrum. "A strategic way of doing that was to stay away from any kind of product promotion and to create something that would resonate with the wider audience and uplift the company's corporate image."
The brief was both simple and audacious: create a commercial that could bypass restrictions without ever explicitly promoting smoking. Spectrum pulled it off by harnessing the most potent force in advertising - storytelling.
"In that particular moment, you had the opportunity to advertise cigarettes by showing Morven Gold's colours without having to show cigarettes or people smoking," said Shahnoor Ahmed, Chairman and CEO of Spectrum. By leaning into the brand's unmistakable red and yellow, the ad relied on a kind of visual muscle memory - instantly recognisable, yet never overt.
What emerged felt less like an advertisement and more like a national tribute. Rhythm of Unity brought together dancers from across Pakistan, their movements guided by a diverse and multi-layered composition. The final sequence - billowing fabric unfurling to reveal the Morven Gold logo - was as close as the commercial ever came to traditional branding. And yet, it cemented itself in public consciousness, an advertisement that sold an idea rather than a product.
Unlike anything else
Pulling off Rhythm of Unity was no small feat. The biggest budget film of its time, it brought together 200 performers and a 100-member production crew. UK-based Rimas Vainorious, who served as both director and director of photography, led the production. Asad ul Haq, who later founded the Karachi Film School, and Muhammad Khalid Ali, now the head of Crew Films, were both part of the team - two emerging talents who would go on to shape Pakistan's ad film industry.
"The challenge was to bring four different kinds of folk dancers and have them dance to one rhythm," Ahmed recalled. "A fair amount of time was spent doing recce and deciding the location, the dancers and all. Even the basic backdrop to it took a lot of time."
Naeem Tahir was enlisted as the choreographer, tasked with arranging dancers from all four provinces. Having settled on Lahore Fort as the commercial's backdrop, the team was treated to a heritage site in a dire state of neglect. Before filming could begin, the team had to undertake an extensive cleanup, reclaiming the site from layers of dust and disrepair. It was just one of many logistical hurdles stacked against an already ambitious creative vision.
Dawn became the production's golden hour. With each take meticulously planned, dancers, cinematographers, and choreographers synchronised their efforts before the first light hit the fort's weathered walls. Every detail, no matter how minute, was treated with care. In retrospect, it was this painstaking precision, this near-obsessive commitment to craft, that made Rhythm of Unity a phenomenal entry in Pakistan's advertising history. Even the nakkara drum that punctuated the ad's soaring soundtrack was a behemoth, custom-built to command both sight and sound.
The soundtrack, however, refused to fall in line. The first recording session in Lahore yielded a track that was discordant, stripped of the depth and cohesion it needed. "Unsurprisingly, the first recording was chaotic and not at all sonically pleasing," Ahmed admitted. But Spectrum had an adept composer in its arsenal - Keith Miller. It took Miller's deft hand to reshape it, layering it into the hypnotic, percussive composition that would come to define the ad.
And then there was the name. It was Yusuf who coined Rhythm of Unity, distilling the commercial's grand ambition into a phrase that expressed an ethos.
A lasting echo
When Rhythm of Unity first aired, it landed with the force of a cultural event. PTV and NTM ran it on repeat, audiences clamoured for VHS copies, and soon, it was everywhere - on television screens, in conversation, in the national imagination.
"The response was simply unbelievable," Ahmed recalled. "It was being talked about everywhere. It was airing several times a day."
It even reached the halls of power. Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto personally requested a copy to present at the World Economic Forum in Davos, a moment that underscored how the commercial had transcended its origins. Over the years, it would continue to resurface, aired on Independence Day, revisited in marketing retrospectives, and shortlisted for international awards like Cresta and the London International Awards.
But its afterlife wasn't limited to television screens. The commercial seeped into public life. Folk dancers from the production were invited to perform at charity galas. Weddings borrowed its choreography. Its imagery - red and yellow fabric unfurling, bodies moving in sync - lodged itself into collective memory.
Three decades on, Rhythm of Unity endures. It resurfaces on social media, where nostalgia amplifies its legend, but its power is more than sentimental. It is a testament to what advertising can achieve when it aspires to something grander than selling a product - when it taps into something elemental.
"If you wanted to show what the country was in two to three minutes, you would put on Rhythm of Unity," Ahmed said of the broadcast's peak. Decades later, that claim still holds.