With Shah Rukh Khan, Alia Bhatt and Ranbir Kapoor returning for the fifth Rungta TMT campaign, the agency needed a fresh way to use the trio.

Shah Rukh Khan, Alia Bhatt and Ranbir Kapoor have never appeared together in a full-length Bollywood film. Yet, Rungta TMT has managed to bring the three stars together repeatedly—not on the big screen, but through advertising.

For the past three years, Rungta TMT has featured the trio across four campaigns, with each actor previously drawing on some of their most recognisable screen characters. Shah Rukh Khan appeared as Don, Alia Bhatt brought her Gangubai persona, while Ranbir Kapoor featured as Barfi.

For the fifth campaign, however, The Script Room decided to take a different approach.

Instead of recreating their iconic characters, the three actors appear as exaggerated versions of themselves—Bollywood stars attempting to pitch their own ideas for a Rungta TMT advertisement.

The result is a humorous take on advertising itself. Each celebrity proposes an increasingly dramatic, Bollywood-style way of communicating Rungta TMT's core promise of “Ekdum Solid Strength.”

The campaign was created by independent agency The Script Room, which was tasked with finding a fresh creative direction while retaining the three celebrities who had already become closely associated with the brand.

According to Ayyappan Raj, founder of The Script Room, the idea was to turn familiar advertising conventions into the joke itself.

Rather than simply making the celebrities endorse the product, the agency placed them in the role of people pitching different advertising ideas. Each concept ultimately revolves around the quality and strength of Rungta TMT.

Turning a steel product into entertainment

TMT steel is not necessarily the easiest category to make entertaining. Unlike food, automobiles or consumer technology, there are limited opportunities for demonstrations, taste tests or lifestyle-led storytelling.

At the same time, the steel category is crowded with brands communicating similar messages around strength, durability and performance.

For The Script Room, the answer was not to move away from the product proposition, but to make the proposition part of the entertainment.

SRK reassures consumers about the strength of Rungta TMT, while Alia and Ranbir present their own approaches to explaining why the product is strong.

The brand name is also deliberately repeated throughout the film, including within the dialogue and song.

The agency believes this integration makes the branding feel like part of the story rather than an interruption. Instead of simply telling consumers that Rungta TMT is strong, the campaign uses humour and entertainment to make the message more memorable.

Why does a B2B steel brand need mass advertising?

TMT steel is primarily a B2B purchase. Contractors, builders, architects, masons and fabricators can all influence which product eventually goes into a building.

So why use a mass-market entertainment format featuring three of Bollywood's biggest stars?

Raj argues that professional buyers are consumers of advertising too. They may make business decisions, but they are still exposed to the same popular culture and brand communication as everyone else.

For a product that eventually becomes invisible inside a building, brand familiarity can therefore play an important role. When professionals already recognise and trust a brand, that familiarity can provide an additional layer of reassurance.

The campaign, therefore, isn't necessarily designed only to trigger immediate sales. Instead, it aims to strengthen Rungta TMT's overall brand presence and familiarity.

The Shah Rukh Khan advantage

Getting three major Bollywood stars to work together was itself a significant challenge. According to Raj, Shah Rukh Khan was particularly comfortable with the campaign's self-deprecating humour.

Rather than simply delivering his lines, Khan actively participated in the creative tone. He reportedly encouraged Alia Bhatt to roast him further and push the humour even more.

The agency explored around three creative routes before finalising the concept. The film was produced with Shaza Morani and the team at Mr & Mrs Films.

Music also played an important role in the campaign. The agency had been exploring music-driven ideas before settling on the final track. Obtaining the required rights and completing the label process took several weeks.

The Script Room wants to be known for writing

While a high-profile celebrity campaign can increase an agency's visibility, The Script Room does not want to be identified simply as an agency that creates celebrity-led comedy advertisements.

For Raj, the larger ambition is to build a reputation around strong writing.

The agency describes its core focus as screenwriting and points to work across different storytelling formats and categories. Its portfolio includes humorous advertising as well as more serious narrative-led work, including a nine-minute Tinder film focused on consent and functional campaigns for PhonePe.

The agency says its objective is to create scripts rooted in strong insights while maintaining high-quality storytelling.

Ahsan Khan, head of business at The Script Room and co-founder of Reelsroom, says the agency has also been working to move beyond its earlier perception as primarily a short-format advertising shop.

Its work now spans sectors including fintech, fashion, gaming and edtech, while continuing to focus on campaigns designed to entertain and appeal to mass audiences.

Good work as the agency's calling card

For an independent agency, campaigns involving high-profile celebrities can become important showcases of its creative capabilities.

The Script Room, which began operations in 2019, says much of its business has come through the reputation built by its previous work rather than the scale or reach of a large agency network.

The agency believes that strong creative work can naturally lead to stronger briefs and new opportunities.

With the latest Rungta TMT campaign, The Script Room has once again used three of India's biggest stars—but this time, instead of relying on their famous characters, it has turned their celebrity identities into the central creative idea.

The result is a campaign that combines Bollywood humour, celebrity chemistry and a straightforward product proposition, while reinforcing The Script Room's larger ambition: to be recognised for the strength of its scripts.