Bournvita introduces granny angle in pre-exam ad

We spoke to Amit Shah, associate director, marketing (gum, candy and powdered beverages), Mondelez India about it.

Last year, in an ad for P&G's Ariel, we saw an elderly gentleman apologise to his daughter - who is also a mother to a little kid - for not 'sharing the load' at home. The creative execution in the new 'pre-exam season' commercial by Cadbury Bournvita is similar. An elderly lady (played by actress Swaroop Sampat) apologises to her daughter (now a mom herself) for giving too much importance to exam scores.

The TVC starts with an irritated mother, yelling at a child. She is asking him to redo his homework since exam dates are close by and he is still making silly mistakes. Seeing this, Sampat (the grandmother) apologises to her daughter because during her school days, Sampat would also make the same mistake. She would pressurise the child on the basis of only mark sheets.

She explains to her daughter that school is for learning and confesses that she herself could never understand this as a mother. Talking about her grandson, she asks her daughter to gauge him by his own capabilities. He doesn't depend on the report card for reassurance but looks up to his mother. The voiceover in the end says, "There is not only one way of preparing. For every preparation there is Cadbury Bournvita."

In the recent past, Cadbury Bournvita has been focusing on children's overall growth and mothers shaping their career. In this ad, the grandmother seems to have taken that responsibility.

In this day and age, when both parents work in nuclear families, they tend to depend on their parents (grandparents) to take care of their children during the day. Considering this, we asked Amit Shah, associate director - marketing (gum, candy and powdered beverages), Mondelez India, if grandparents are the brand's new TG to increase the sales of Cadbury Bournvita.

He says, "Our latest TVC is inspiring, in an otherwise functional category. It reinforces the importance of the child's overall learning over rote learning to score marks in exams. The TVC interweaves these insights into the Cadbury Bournvita philosophy of "Tayyari Jeet Ki". TVCs in this campaign have been about the role of the mother and Cadbury Bournvita in preparing the child for success in life."

He adds, "This TVC too, is essentially a story of the Mother and Child preparing together for exams. The grandmother's role is that of a vehicle to deliver a message on preparation, just like that of the principal in the Cadbury Bournvita Badam Booster TVC."

Talking about the ad, Ryan Mendonca, group creative director, Ogilvy Mumbai, says, "In our education system, exam marks have been the defining metric for far too long. There's plenty of evidence that points towards the need for reform in how we teach and evaluate our kids."

He adds, "The obsession with marks is a bad habit that is passed on with every generation. We wanted to challenge this old paradigm and suggest, as Bournvita would, a progressive approach to preparing our kids."

The ad was released on YouTube on January 29 and has got over two million views.