Learning a thing or two from your kid

There are certain things that today’s kids know better than their parents, and that’s technology. Based on that insight, Reliance World’s latest TVC showcases a typical modern-day son-father relationship.

“It was a logical thing to do,” says D Ramakrishna, aka Ramki, executive director, Cartwheel Creatives. “And it’s also quite believable, considering how tech-savvy kids are these days.”

“Quite often, kids know more about technology than their parents, as they are born in an environment in which computers, mobiles and other such gadgets are a part of their daily lives,” he adds.

The film for Reliance World opens on the shot of a man hurriedly walking down the corridors in a convent school in a bid to avoid bumping into the nuns and faculty. He reaches a classroom where a bunch of kids are in the middle of their music class. From the doorway, he hisses, “Sanju!”, trying to catch the attention of one of the boys.

A girl behind Sanju nudges him into looking at the door. When he sees his father there, he gets embarrassed and tries to hide his face behind some papers. But his father is persistent and continues to stand at the door, signalling to his son to come out. The teacher finally notices the disturbance and, on the father’s behest, asks Sanju to go and see what his father wants.

The boy asks his father what the matter is, in answer to which his Dad promptly takes out his Reliance phone from his pocket and asks, “Beta, Reliance World mein cricket score kaise milta hai, dikha na (Son, teach me how to find out the cricket score from Reliance World).”

Exasperated, Sanju retorts, “Daddy! Aap bhi na! Bas button dabao!” The voiceover goes on to explain how easy it is to use the facilities provided by Reliance World, which are just the press of a button away. On learning that Dhoni has hit a six, the father jumps with excitement on his way out of the school, while a shocked nun watches.

Krishna Durbha, head, business and marketing, Reliance World, claims that awareness was never a problem for Reliance World, the challenge was to increase the use of its services among its existing subscribers.

He explains, “There are close to a crore users who have a Reliance World enabled handset in India. But our research indicated that within that base, there was tremendous potential to increase the frequency of usage per person.”

That formed the core objective of the communication – to get existing users to realise the ‘world’ of good Reliance World can do them. “And if this communication manages to increase awareness of our service among non-users, too, then why not?” smiles Durbha.

To achieve the task, Ramki of Cartwheel worked on two basic insights, the first being that people experience inertia when it comes to using technology, and that in the case of cell phones, they sometimes restrict their activities to voice calls and SMSs because they feel intimidated by the thought of trying anything new.

“Hence the whole ‘Bas button dabao’ angle,” explains Ramki.

Secondly, the agency realised that while the middle-aged/older generation tries to catch up with changing times, kids are moving ahead and rapidly becoming the technology knowledge centres in their families.

The cricket score angle was used because everyone knows how desperate people can get to know the score of a match in India. “Desperate enough to reach your kids’ school!” quips Ramki.

This film, shot in St. Xavier’s College, Mumbai, was directed by Pervez Ahmed of Dungarpur Films. His mandate was to capture the relationship between the father and the son in a charming way. “The kid had to be shown as someone who knows how often his dad consults him on technology issues, which is why he has this ‘Oh no! Not again!” expression on his face,” says Ahmed.

The school was deliberately portrayed as a Christian missionary school to bring out the discipline factor. “It makes the father look even more out of place,” he explains.

It is believed through informed sources that this communication should garner a 25 per cent increase in revenues for Reliance World, although Reliance Infocomm has offered no official comment. However, officials there do disclose that as per a brand track conducted by them, the campaign is being well received and is generating high brand recall.

One subtle message the ad brings out is that ‘R-World’ has been replaced with ‘Reliance World’.

“In a way, this is the actual launch campaign for Reliance World,” explains Durbha of Reliance World. The earlier ads for R-World (one of which featured actor Paresh Rawal) were scheme-based, he says, while this one is theme-based.

© 2006 agencyfaqs!