Sign up for afaqs! Newsletters
Only kidding: Children lighten up TZP interval
Children everywhere – in the movie, during the interval and in the theatre. That’s PVR’s mantra for Taare Zameen Par
Taare Zameen Par, Hindi film actor Aamir Khan’s directorial debut is about special children, with learning disabilities. And certainly, eight year old Darsheel Safary, who plays the dyslexic Ishaan Awasthi, walks away with your heart. But PVR Cinemas has taken the child angle further by featuring, during the intermission of the movie, ads that feature children. Among the ads being featured at the multiplexes are those for Airtel, Lead India and the Jaypee Group
“As a practice, PVR makes an attempt to match the advertisements played during the intermission with the genre or subject of the movie running in the theatre. The commercial should be somehow linked with the subject of the film. In the case of Taare Zameen Par, the marketing team pitched the subject of the film to those clients who are open to experiments and creativity. The client was educated about the genre of the film, and how their brand would fit into the ambience,” says Gautam Dutta, CEO, CineMedia, PVR.
“Though Taare Zameen Par is about children, it is largely a film meant for the children and their parents. That was the message sent out to the clients. In a way, the children are delivering the message to their elders – both in the film and in the TVC,” explains Dutta.
Next, you could see the Lead India ad in which a child is the first to initiate action in trying to move a fallen tree that has blocked the road and created a huge traffic jam. The grown-ups follow his lead and soon clear the road. On comes the tagline, ‘Lead India, Looking for Future Leaders’.
“Whether you wish to be a forward looking nation or family, you normally see hope in your children. Children are the best agents of change. That’s what we have tried to define in our latest advertisement. Although we haven’t made the TVC keeping the movie in mind, it’s a very pleasant coincidence that the message given by our commercial and by the movie is similar. In a way, the two are complementing each other,” says Rahul Kansal, brand director, The Times of India.
Finally, there’s the Jaypee Goup advertisement, in which a five year old boy tries to impress his girl friend with a snap of his fingers, which inspires a group to do difficult things the easy way.
The ads are a perfect complement for the innocent candour of Taare Zameen Par. PVR Cinemas has obviously made an effort to achieve the match. In the past too, PVR has mixed and matched movies and commercials, like when it placed the ad for Hero Honda Pleasure during the intermission of Laaga Chunari Mein Daag, a film about the trials and tribulations of women.