Asian Paints' Raksha Bandhan film made a brother's spray-painted memory box the gift

Asian Paints wanted its ezyCR8 range of DIY solutions shown as a way to make something unique and meaningful by upcycling it rather than discarding it, timed to Raksha Bandhan.

Kinnect conceptualised and executed the social and digital film: an older sister visits her maiden home for her first Raksha Bandhan after marriage, finds the shared room redone to her brother's tastes, notices the hand-spray-painted box of childhood memories, and hears that the room will always have space for his 'first roommate' — her.

No quantified results reported; the film reframed the festival around shared space and upcycling, with ezyCR8 as the gesture's mechanism rather than a bolted-on product shot.

For Raksha Bandhan 2022, Asian Paints released 'First Roommates', a film by its social and digital creative agency Kinnect about the love-hate bond of siblings — told through the thing siblings actually fight over: the room. An older sister visits her maiden home for her first Raksha Bandhan after marriage and walks into what used to be their shared room, now done up entirely to her brother's likes and interests.

Everything looks amazing until she looks closer: a hand-spray-painted box filled with childhood memories. The film ends with the brother telling his didi that this room will always have space for his first roommate — her. The gesture is made with Asian Paints' ezyCR8, the brand's easy-to-use DIY range, which lets consumers upcycle rather than discard — the brother goes 'beyond just buying a gift', as Kinnect senior creative director Madhura Haldipur put it.

Haldipur framed the insight as spatial: 'Most of this originates in the home — lack of space or having to share a room as kids which transforms into a grown-up love language of bickering or teasing.' The film used that shared-room history to retell Raksha Bandhan beyond the brother-safeguards-sister script, around love, protection and support instead.

The insight is spatial, not sentimental — siblings share rooms, so 'first roommates' reframes the bond through the home Asian Paints actually sells to.

Upcycling carries the plot: the memory box is both the emotional reveal and the ezyCR8 product demo.

It widens Raksha Bandhan beyond the protection script without discarding the festival's own grammar.

Product placement lands when the product is the emotional mechanism, not the message: the DIY box is why the gesture exists, so the brand sits inside the plot.

Released in August 2022 across Asian Paints' social and digital channels for Raksha Bandhan; no follow-up results were reported.