TVC: Cadbury’s 5 Star–Condition Serious Hai
By Malay Desai By: Ogilvy India The latest film for Cadbury India’s choco-caramel bar 5 Staropens with the claim that babies of the yore used to be born happy, until a disease called ‘seriousness’ changed history. The ‘serious’ babies are then shown popping out of their mothers and growing up to be grumpy, fastidious men. In the latter half of the ad, a comical doctor is shown administering a bar of the chocolate to one such victim, followed by graphics of how it attacks causes of seriousness in one’s brain. The cranky boss is then shown chuckling and the film winds up with its tagline, ‘5 Star andar, seriousness bahar.’ Do we like Goodbye Ramesh and Suresh, hello Mr Manu Anand. It is an important year for Cadbury India and its newish head Anand – the company faces slow consumption in the rural areas and has entered a new segment... let’s just call it the Snickers segment. This film carries the the weight of taking forward the spunk given to brand 5 Star by its predecessors, the memorable twins Ramesh and Suresh. The one-minute effort is a sprint in the crazy lane, and although it doesn’t have a lead character or his twin, it leaves behind many chuckles. The core idea is to drill in that the product is anything but serious, in fact it’s the perfect antidote to seriousness. Yes, quite the route a Kurkure or a Mirinda has taken in the past but the treatment here is the differentiator. Beginning with a tiny ‘history chapter’ with a narrator, the ad keeps the viewer wondering where it’s going. The ‘insight’ that babies of the yore were normal until the ‘seriousness’ epidemic got to mankind is brilliant, stuff Ogilvy’s creative folk are known for. Then on, building a storyboard seems to have been easy, and the spot ends up saying enough about the product itself. (Look around closely, we’re sure you’ll find folks who are incorrigibly serious at the happiest of events.) The production here is top-class, reminding us of McCann’s epic spots for HappyDent White (human lanterns, remember?) and Ogilvy’s own legendary works for Fevicol. The ‘period’ sets in some shots, one of them being pointlessly black-andwhite, the ‘pichuk’ sounds to denote popping out of babies and the bizarre styling of the characters (especially the doctor) are standout elements that contribute to the hilarity of the film. The concluding moments, a chocolate being administered like an injection would be, is bound to be a hit among the biggest target audience, children. And finally, a take on clichéd cough syrup visuals to show 5 Star going in your system and curing you are a production masterstroke. (One question though - why only show men to be khadoos?) Time to ask Cadbury’s rivals, ‘why so serious?’ (To watch this film, feed this easy-link into your browser: bit.ly/Feb17ad ~ and to know of its buzz on social media, search with the hashtag ‘#conditionserioushai’) SOCIAL NEWSFEED The V annoying V-Day on social web We exactly remember how this column last year had ranted about annoying contests reaching a peak during the Valentine’s Day period and this year has only been worse. If Dominos, ChetanBhagat’s Kai Po Che promotions and Maybelline India were the culprits last time, we hadFlipkart, Sunny Leone (um going about her upcoming film and a condom brand she endorses) and Garnier/Elle among others filling up our social pages. Worse, some ‘social influencers’ roped in by brands would initiate contests from their Twitter handles, making you wonder if you are better off taking a miniholiday from social media during these days. That said, two little bits heartened us were the #TeamForeverAlone, a bunch of singles that planned and met at a coffee shop in Mumbai a day after V Day. And Barack Obama’s tweet for his wife! Your influencer friend likes this The IPL is near, Pepsi’s intern is here Among other things that annoyed us in the past week was a particular ‘intern’ who was hired before the IPL auction in Bangalore. We thought that Pepsi’s ‘@ ThatPepsiIntern’ campaign tweeted some inanities on the auction days but come to think of it, it is definitely a smart campaign with even better timing of the big cricket league coming up in the summer. So the ‘intern’ here was RanbirKapoor, a selfconfessed fan of the fizzy drink going all over the auction proceedings and posting exclusive pictures. The digital campaign works on two counts – the idea of ‘internship’ is an aspirational one among youngistan – everyone in their late teens seeks one every summer and the X-factor, RanbirKapoor isn’t on Twitter otherwise. Win-win. Expect some more social wins for Pepsi as the IPL rolls out this April. RanbirKapoor likes this Obama doesn’t want @HouseofCardsspoilers There was in fact another tweet from @BarackObama last week that caught our eye and got us thinking. On Valentine’s Day, his account tweeted and tagged the account of @HouseOfCards, an American TV seriesabout a conniving politician’s ascent to the White House. ‘No spoilers, please’, it said, sending the fans in a tizzy . The times of social media have truly posed a challenge to producers of films and TV series, as it only takes moments after a show’s premiere for the word to go viral and spoil the fun for hundreds of others. While some series such as Sherlock appeal to fans to not tweet, most die-hard fans themselves switch off from all forms of media during premier times. House Of Cards, the fabulous show starring Kevin Spacey, this time has introduced ‘Spoiler Foiler’, a special version of Twitter which you must log in, to avoid all mentions of the show’s plots! Joey Barnslikes this
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