By Malay Desai
From: USA & India
In a diptych, we look at two recent films with mothers as lead characters. Proctor & Gamble’s sequel to 2012’s global ‘Thank You Mom’ ads is a film for the upcoming Winter Olympics in Sochi, Russia. Showing children and young adults who stumble and bruise themselves in the first half, only to be picked up by their mothers, the film shows Winter Olympic sportspersons in their winning moments, eventually with their mothers. Maharashtra-based tea brand Vikram has a child singing about his working mother’s routine and role in upkeeping the family, before ending with her sipping the tea followed by the product window.
Do we Like ?
New York-based Wieden & Kennedy, perhaps not content with the awards that its ‘Proud Sponsor of Moms’ received while being the toast of the ads during London 2012, has churned out a sequel. Bollywood film-makers take note, for you have company in the ‘sequel achieving its goals but not being as good as the original’ category.
In the last Olympics, P&G’s campaign focusing on mothers struck a chord at a universal level, and apart from being a well-crafted tear-jerker, it was a clever piece of communication organized around the firm’s biggest consumers — home-makers. By reiterating their status in a family and making the ‘anchor and care-giver’ role heroic, the brand umbrella resonated globally, pegged with the aspirations of Olympians. Riding on that wave, here’s another tear-jerker if you may, but it doesn’t grab our hearts at least.
Firstly, a good 70 seconds of the 120 seconder show sportspersons falling, in increasing levels of age. After the start, it just seems like a Just For Laughs video. Then, the peg of the film being Winter Olympics, i.e., sports such as skiing and ice-hockey, don’t really matter for nonparticipating or warmer countries. Yes, the same role of the care-giver mother has been replayed to create strong emotions, but we don’t see the ripples of this ad going too far as compared to its predecessor.
On the other hand of this chalk is cheese, a rare mainstream ad of a regional tea brand. But we mention this film only to point out that agency boardrooms here are thinking on similar lines — make the mom a hero. Unfortunately, for this 45-second ad starring TV hottie-of-five-years-ago Sangita Ghosh, the only thing worth writing home about is the catchy voice-over. Done presumably by a child artiste, it lends an endearing tone to the ad.
Otherwise, Vikram Tea’s effort is something dozens of other toothpaste, pressure cooker, masala, back rub and detergent brands have done and will keep doing. There are diptychs in this film too, filmed well despite its clichéd storyboard.
Anyone else wishing to celebrate mothers this year, dig deeper for a cool idea. Maybe ask your moms.
(To watch the Vikram Tea ad, feed this link into your browser: vimeo.com/83566844 and to follow what social media users think of P&G’s new film, search with the hashtag #BecauseOfMom)
SOCIAL NEWSFEED
UTV social’s neat effort for Sholay 3D
It was perhaps the easiest film in the history of Bollywood to promote on social media, but Sholay 3D’s distributor UTV Motion Pictures must deserve some brownie points from our social media judge-saab for its effort. While the clincher was making the epic characters wear old-school 3D glasses (the visuals were the theme in outdoor ads too), some funny bits that worked on Facebook were making contemporary quirky captions and speech bubbles, building up with Sholay trivia well before release and getting the film’s fans involved in posts. Obviously, the admins didn’t have to worry about reviews but given the tacky ‘Happy Birthday’ posts and other pointless nostalgia, the page has been dishing out, this is a distinguished effort.
Salim-Javed like this
‘Bikini bridge’ is the new ‘thigh gap’?
We won’t judge you if you have no clue of what we’re talking about because nobody really knew what the former term meant until a few weeks back. Perhaps riding on the ‘trend’ among young ladies to have a ‘gap ’ between your thighs when you stand, i.e. , get toothpick-thin legs, there is another fad that is reported to have picked up. When bikini bottoms are suspended between hip bones, in case of anorexically thin women, it often causes a space between the bikini and well, the lower abdomen. Apparently many are taking pics from top-down and posting on blogs, ‘inspiring’ women to lose weight and get a bikini bridge. Many others are calling it a joke stretched too far. Perhaps the only heartening bit of this snippet is that we heard it from the UK non-newspaper Daily Mail, so we’re taking it with a sack of salt!
Teeny models like this
Heard of a ‘shoppable Hangout?’
Nope, this seems to be a week of new learnings. Fusing the idea of a celebrity Google Hangout and online shopping, e-retailer Myntra has marked January 15 to be a grand #ShopTheHangout event. It’s asking users to log on to its YouTube channel to catch actor Hrithik Roshan (the split hasn’t corroded his brand value it seems) in a one-on-one interaction and at the same time click on links to buy his private label for casual wear, HRX (nope , we didn’t know of that either. Where’s the rock we’ve been staying under?). Touting this to be the first such event in Asia, the promoters experimenting with the concept are not likely to taste profits right away we feel. But it still seems like an innovative idea that would garner much online goodwill. If Shoppable Hangouts too become mainstream, we’d have the Internet equivalent of ‘tele-shopping channels!’
Magic Mop Makers like this
