By Malay Desai
From: O&M & JWT
Owing to readers’ demands, here’s an occasional pick off our own commercial shelves! Fanta’s new TVC takes the animated route once more and features ‘Gigi’ with a host of South Park-like tiny characters. Pegging on the idea of ‘taste that makes you jump’, it shows them jumping, sticking with their tag, ‘Zyada Fanta, Zyada Masti.’ Mirinda retains actor Asin in her ‘pagalpanthi bhi zaroori hai’ theme, welcoming a chief guest to a college convocation where everyone is breathless, from having the drink’s new flavours – masala and mango.
Why we Like
It is that time of the year when the 9,000 crore cola market rolls up its sleeves for a long summer ahead and agency folks lose sleep over oneupmanship efforts. So have the first moves from Coke and PepsiCo for their orange drinks, set the tone for a refreshing season ahead? We’re sure the former has.
Fanta, positioned worldwide as a ‘more bubbly, less serious’ drink, reverts to its playful-animation-withoutany-solid-script approach. It worked beautifully last year thanks to composer Amit Trivedi’s tune and this time too, that is the X-factor (rather, the only factor). The thump in the tune blends with the jumpy characters, cars and buildings in the visuals. And although there is no memorable line such as 2011’s ‘Chuski jo le man-wa fentastic.. ho jaye,’ there is enough feel-good in this one. (What’s with the lead animated character turning many shades fairer though? *Thumbs down!*) We hear Fanta is planning an outdoor approach by making teens do the trampoline etc. to further the ‘jump’ idea. Wholesome thinking, that!
The other side of the ring – Mirinda – has the big names, Asin and Raju Hirani (directed of the spot) but nearly fails to give us as much ‘pagalpanthi’ as earlier. It shows Asin walking a chief guest through a college (Sophia in Mumbai, no prizes for guessing), who gets scandalized looking at panting couples all over. It turns out that everyone’s been having the new Mirinda flavours at a go, leaving them breathless. ‘Ha ha’.
The point of the TVC, we guess, is to unveil two variants of the conventional orange drink – ‘masala’ and ‘mango’. Do we get any idea how they taste like? No. Adding masala to a soft drink is a delicious idea, waiting to be approved by desi taste buds, but this ‘breathless’ approach doesn’t focus on it at all. And what on earth is ‘orange-mango’ anyway? We don’t get to know. And maybe it’s just us, but Asin is at her weirdest best here, and not in a funny way as her past avatars.
Colas, your move for the summer?
(Watch the Mirinda spot on Goo.gl/AsnHw and the Fanta one on Goo.gl/ Qpxrq).
