The psychedelic dive into the Eclairs experience

Taking forward the Meetha Bomb idea, Cadbury Dairy Milk Eclairs, in its new television commercial, talks about diving into the eating experience as it says, 'Doob Le Zara'

First, heads burst into chocolate and now, Eclairs makes you explode into your fantastic world of 'psychedelia'. The latest TV commercial of Cadbury Dairy Milk Eclairs, called the Psychedelia commercial, talks of getting further lost in the experience of eating the candy.

Created by Contract Advertising, the film takes forward the Meetha Bomb campaign, which showed people getting completely lost in the taste of the Eclairs candy, with the chocolate 'exploding' in their mouths.

The tagline this time is 'Doob Le Zara'. The film shows the protagonist being extremely bored at a retro-styled social gathering. As he pops an Eclairs, things seemingly change for the better - with the scene suddenly turning into a fantasy which gets more upbeat as he delves further into his chocolaty fantasy. He is brought back to the present soon - but not before he smilingly looks at another Eclairs in his hand.

The film has been directed by Razneesh Ghai and produced by Sunil Bhatia and Prithvi Luthra of Via Us Films. The writer of the film is Kapil Sawant, creative director, Contract Advertising.

The play in both the Meetha Bomb and the current film is on the experience of eating the Eclairs and hence, explosion has been used as the creative device. The key insight used was consumers getting lost with every Éclair.

The agency was briefed by Cadbury to take the eating experience to a higher level with the new campaign.

Raj Nair, regional creative director, Contract Advertising is of the view that the nature of the product has a lot to contribute to the creative thought.

"Here is a better product. The caramel is smoother and creamier. The chocolate is less chewy and has a fuller feel. We wanted the next level to be a psychedelic experience of eating Eclairs. Hence the hallucinatory imagery, which stems from the eating experience and that is why we came up with Doob Le Zara," Nair tells afaqs!.

"Eclairs, because of the product construct, is an involving 'eatable' despite being a candy. The act of eating an Eclairs is actually engaging and you could romanticise that experience," he adds.

The agency has worked out radio and digital media support for the film. Activation plans are also underway.

Madison handles the media duties for the brand.

Doob gaye?

The film, although appreciated for the style and execution, has come in for some flak for a plot that delivered little surprise to the creative experts.

"The styling is nice and the psychedelic graphics are super neat but the plot is old and contrived. If this is version 2.0 of the chocolate bomb ad, I am not sure if I am buying it. Surely there are better ways to carry forward the idea," says Rohit Malkani, executive creative director, Grey Group.

"Stuck in a bored situation, pop the product and voila! Nothing new! The casting and acting, too, were rather predictable," Malkani adds.

Bobby Pawar, chief creative officer, Mudra Group likes the ad as well, although he, too, has reservations.

"It is a nice spot. The storyline is interesting. The chocolate fantasy segue is cool but a little too long," he says.

Pawar adds that the concept is too close to the 5 Star commercials, which also talk about getting lost in the taste idea.

"One visualises and the other does not. That is the only difference," Pawar says.

Earlier, afaqs! also popped the same question to Nair, who, while not denying the similar angle, said that the other brand explored the concept too literally, while with Eclairs, it is more sensorial.