The Mystery of the Penguins

Have you seen the recent Coca Cola campaign ‘Ummeedon waali dhoop, sunshine wali assha’?

It is one of those ads which leave you feeling all warm inside. It talks about everything negative that everyone thinks/talks about while highlighting the positive that people do not know (possibly) or think/talk about. And, I don’t care whether the facts and numbers mentioned in the ad are correct. It always leaves a smile on my face.

It is one of the few ads I see to the very end, every time. After watching it one evening, I changed the channel and chanced upon the millionth broadcast of the 7 Up ad featuring Sharman Joshi and a set of grumpy penguins.

Each time I watch this ad right through to the end as well. And not because I love the creation. It simply boggles my mind.

For those lucky few who haven’t had the misfortune to be subjected to this ad, let me just take a minute to brief you.

Set up : People have come to see penguins (am guessing in a zoo or some sort of park) but the penguins look rather sullen. So Sharman Joshi, sips his 7 Up and does an extremely silly dance sequence and lo and behold – the penguins are now happy!

Am thinking the penguins wanted him to stop and hence pretended to look happy. They were suffering enough considering they were captive.

Maybe it is the MBA gyaan in my head which makes me look for the message and the consumer cues (and loads of other such jargon) in every advert. But each time I see this ad, I want to really look for one sane moment which can explain it all.

You know how some ads just don’t make sense? One wonders just how could they allow such ads to be made? Isn’t ad making an expensive process? Where there are agencies, marketing teams, branding teams and so on and so forth? How does such an ad make it through so many people?

So possibly 7 up was trying to say that you could ‘cheer someone up’ after drinking 7 Up. Ok, that would make sense.

But why use penguins? Is it because brands have started using animals in their advertisements? In the recent past, I could think of Kitkat (with the squirrels first and now the parrots) and Cadbury Gems (with the Pandas).

The Kitkat ads are cute. I love the angle of the skirmish between the furry couple and how they make up by singing a cheesy Bollywood number. The parrot ad is pretty much along the same lines. Here, the theme of the ads was to ‘take a break’ and notice things around you which you otherwise would miss. The use of animals in the storyline makes perfect sense to me.

The Panda made sense since Gems was possibly trying to talk about the different colors in their product. And the Panda changing color was a good way to showcase the same.

But I yet can’t see why 7 Up used penguins.

I agree, that all a cold drink does is quench your thirst and you really cant just communicate that. So I can understand the need for a beverage brand to latch on to an emotion:

• ·   Coke  - when you want to be happy or hopeful
• ·   Sprite  - when you meet a smart alec in your life and you want to best him
• ·   Mountain Dew  - when you confront something you fear

If you consider the ads made by these brands, they all talk about situations/circumstances which people encounter in their life be it the ‘boy meets girl’ in a bus with Imran Khan by Coke ad or the ‘boy meets oversmart boy’ campaign by Sprite. However over the top the ads might seem, the situation is very believable.

Unlike, the 7 Up ad.

I cannot imagine anyone running into penguins who would feel ‘cheerful’ after a mindless dance. Unless the penguins were set free post the consumption of soft drink!

So, if this were my ad and I was forced to have penguins in the storyline – I would have at least set the penguins free…!