TV commercials have always fascinated us, they are like really really short stories that have the power to move us and make us change our minds or make up our minds about a product or a service. And what has fascinated us, even more, are cartoons or what we call as animations. Is it then any wonder TV commercials makers started using animations as part of TV ads.
Over the years we have seen many ads that have brilliantly used animations as part of the advertisement. Who can forget Fido Dido, the cool hip teenager from 7UP ads back in the 90s? The character soon became a fad, triggering a sleuth of merchandise like stickers, bands, magnets, etc.
One of my all-time favorite ad has to be the Mentos evolution of man ad. The ad makers took the international Mentos tag line “Freshmaker” and gave it an Indian twist and turned it into “Dimag Ki Batti Jala De”, the ad-makers came up with an amazing concept of human evolution from an ape to man and not to the cute donkey named “Gaddhu”.
Talking of cute, another ad that comes to my mind is the Big Babaol bubble gum ad, where a turtle egg accidentally falls into a bird’s nest with two egg of its own. What follows is a hilarious comedy of the baby turtle using the bubble gum to fly away with his surrogate family.
Animation based ads are a great way of reaching out to the audience. The animated characters have an innate capability of reaching out to us at very basic, sort of “inner child” level. But not all animation ads are 100% animations, there are times animations is missed up and shown as part of the real-life, just like in the 7UP ads with Fido Dido.
Another similar ad with mixed animation was the 2010 Kit Kat ad, with a young man “taking a break” by eating KitKat in a park and suddenly he can see two squirrels dancing away like Kate Nahi Katate from the famous Anil Kapoor and Sridevi starrer Mr. India.
Ad filmmakers often use animations ads to create lighthearted ads for subjects that are otherwise not very comfortable for people to talk about. Subjects that otherwise might be considered a taboo. In cases like that a humorous, lighthearted approach works better to send across a message. And what subject can be more difficult to talk about in the India society than that of protected sex or rather the importance of using protection i.e. condoms during sex? And using an animated character called Chunnilal, who apparently forgets and confuses everything in life but is always responsible when it comes to sex and always uses a condom.
But if we are talking about animation ads, there is one ad series that cannot go without mention. This ad series captured the imagination of the entire country and became one of the most successful ad campaigns ever. I am talking about none other than the Zoo Zoo ad series by Vodafone. The cute as button character Zoo Zoo and his other Zoo Zoo pals became immensely popular and were single-handedly responsible for meteoric sales rise for Vodafone in India.
Red Bull, the energy drink manufacturer used their tagline “Red Bull Gives You Wings” and animation brilliantly. Red bull came up with a series of line drawing based animation ads that became quite popular with the audience.
Suffice it to say that, animations are a great way to market a product, service or even disseminate a public welfare message, and have been used by ad filmmakers successfully and brilliantly over the years and will continue to do so.