'Dimag ki batti jala de' - Mentos'

new TV Commercial

(I) The concept of the Advertisement –

Famous poet and writer Martin Dansky once said,
"Change is at the very core of evolution and without it, all creatures would
look alike and behave the same way."

Mentos mint's new TV commercial is here to prove the same.

Characters –

(A) The Chimp (Slave)

(B) The Donkey (Master)

………. This is just the beginning, the story folds into a new arena as -

Mr. Chimp has no brains. He gets bullied by Mr.

Donkey, the authorized owner of all the brains on earth. While Mr. Donkey,
"Daddu" of the huge but cute ape, enjoys his ride on the wheel-less cart, our
pitied forefather slaves to pull the heavily loaded wood piece through the
stony rugged jungle road.
When Mr. Donkey is absolutely tired of
enjoying the joy ride he decides to take some
rest. Both the slave and the master park
themselves under a tree where Daddu's poor
pitiful grandson finds a little pack. It has
"Mentos" written on it. Mr. Chimp offers the
little pack to his master but the ruthless
master rejects it and goes off to sleep.

Mr. Chimp is tempted. He opens the pack,

stares at the white thing inside, smells it
and finally allows his mouth to engulf it.

Within seconds, transformation is witnessed. He starts

running, not on four, but two! While running, he decides to get civilized, and
hence covers his hush-hush zones to maintain some confidentiality.

He enters a cave. It's

dark inside. The chimp-turned-caveman
lights some fire striking two stones against
one another. But he does not stop; he keeps
running as though he were running in the
Olympics! And finally when he reaches the
cave-end "there is light" and he, the
"enlightened."

Now, as he leaves the darkness behind allowing the light of

wisdom to fall upon him, he encounters Daddu once again. That being is still
under the same tree. While Mr. Chimp had transformed into a civilized mortal
being, the "intelligent" could witness no such change.
 Reason? It's Mentos, ladies and gentlemen!!!
The brain stimulator... rejected by the grass-
eater and devoured by brain-meter. Dimag ki
batti jala de!

But what's on the penalty plate for Mr. Ass?

Well, now it's his turn to pull the new-born Mr. Intelligent, happily
riding his stony cart while it rolls on his freshly invented round wheel. Sorry
Daddu.

Characters –

(A) The Chimp (Master)

(B) The Donkey (Slave)

…………… and the story ends here

Mentos' TV commercial is faithful to its tagline -

Dimag ki batti jala de!

(II) The Facts –

 Ad Agency: Ogilvy & Mather
 Production house: Soda Films
 Creative Director : Jignesh Maniar
 Film Shoot : Frameworks (Singapore)
 Characterization : Rajesh Krishnan
 Running time: 51 seconds
 ITV rating: * * * *
(III) Advertisement Objectives –
The AIDAS model can be used to determine the
advertisement objectives –

Awareness –
This ad of Mentos was a big hit among the general mass of
people. One can either love it or hate it but when it comes
to ignoring I, the answer is a big NO.

Interest –
Most ads in this category generally talked about fresh
breath but the Mentos ad deviated from the other ads in
this category. Mentos doesn’t talk about the functional
benefit at all – it works on a psychological level, where
people associate the brand with the imagery of ‘smartness’.

Desire –
The ad was successfully able to gain conviction. Mentos maybe
a breath freshener, but the message the brand image conveys
is ‘think fresh’.

Action –
After such an innovative advertisement, the company Perfetti
Van Melle found a huge surge in purchase behaviour of the
mint flavoured candy. The ad has helped the brand to increase
its market share in the soft mint category from 33% in 2005
to 48% in 2007.

Satisfaction –
In overall the ad proved to be successful as most of new
purchaser of Mentos, prompted by the ad to purchase it,
were satisfied with the product.
(IV) Types of Media utilized for Ad –

(i) Print Media –

 Newspapers
 Magazines

(ii) Broadcast Media –

 Radio
 Television

(iii) Electronic Media –

 Internet
 Web portal

(V) The Target Audience –

Perfetti Van Melle needed an
aggressive strategy to build a brand name that the country’s youth could
easily identify it with. The fact that they chose the age group of 18 to 34
years clearly proves the point that the company targeted college going crowd
and the youths just who stepped into adulthood.

(VI) The Message –

The company wanted to depict the real
life situations built around the theme of ‘smart thinking’. Through animated
advertisement the company spreads that they embarked upon a
(VII) Message Design –
(a) Message Content -
The theme is that it described very little about
the product itself but simulated situations in which the Mentos consumer was
shown to be having greater presence of mind and that was indirectly
attributed to consuming Mentos mints. The appeal is a Rational Appeal i.e. go
for a product that enlightens yourself or “ dimag ki batti jala de ”

(b) Message Structure –

The advertisement starts showing the
evolution of humankind from monkey to man based on the Darwin theory of
Evolution. The ad continues with Mentos enlightening consumers with its
‘Dimaag ki Batti Jala De’ tagline. At the end the tables have turned and the
man rules the donkey !!

(c) Message Format –

The ad is 51 seconds long and was first
introduced on television. The ad is very well crafted animated ad and has
moved away from the real life to artificial world (absurdism) without losing
the original positioning.

(d) Message Source –

The brand moved away from usual ideas and
took the animated path. The appeal was made to the public to use Mentos so
as to enlighten themselves.

Thus this concludes the advertisement

analysis of Mentos “ Dimag ki batti jale de ” ad.