Best ads of the fortnight: Hershey's ad is ghoulishly good, Mondelez's gets 5 stars

We're back with a brand new edition of the 'Best ads of the fortnight' with a brand new list of doozies from the ad world. This fortnight, we look at ads released between November 1st and 15th. It was an eventful two-week period because we got to see some of the most creative spots that made us go "wow!"
The campaigns that made the cut this fortnight were picked for their imaginativeness, recall value and the chatter they generated on the internet.
As always, they have been arranged in alphabetical order.

Amazon Pay- #AbHarDinHuaAasan
      
The readiness with which India embraced digitisation has stunned the world. Everyone from young to to old have warmed up to the idea of making payments online with the help of apps. Amazon Pay's second leg of its #AbHarDinHuaAsan campaign is centred on this fact.

The ad highlights how merchants big and small and customers have taken to digital payments. It highlights how Amazon Pay has simplified transactions and improved the ease of payment acceptance in everyday situations.

Berger

If there was a renovation activity that most people put off, it is painting. Also, if kids watch their parents lying to get out of any situation, they will also pick up a thing or two from their elders.

Armed with these two crucial insights, Berger came up with its BahaanoKeSideEffects campaign, a cautionary tale for elders who defer painting their peeling walls and make up excuses to prevent people from visiting their homes.

The two-minute long ad conceptualised by LS Digital keeps you invested with its humour and a stellar performance by the actors only for the big reveal towards the end.

Bournvita

In recent years, Bournvita shifted its tone to be more empathetic towards children's mental health. Its earlier campaigns were focussed on the competitive spirit and winning.

While Bournvita is a kids' health drink, it always kept parents at the heart of its communications.

Bournvita's recent campaign #FaithNotForce by Ogilvy aims to enlighten parents to take notice of their children’s true talent instead of forcing them into preset career moulds. The brand brought out 'forced packs' where the Bourvita bottles were reimagined as a toilet cleaner jar, an egg box, tissue paper box, a glass cleaner bottle, a ketchup bottle, a soap box and a cooking oil bottle.

The intent was clearly to shock, forcing parents into thinking about how they may impact their children's future by force fitting them into a career they don't like.

The term "force-fitting" will be used by critics of the ad in the days to come who thought that the campaign seemed a bit contrived and too dated since parenting styles have become a lot more progressive these days.

However, this remains one of the most memorable and talked-about campaigns of not only the fortnight but also the year.

Century Plyboards

In the midst of the festive season when most brands are talking about celebration, family time and spending, Century Plyboards took a detour to a pressing cause.

The plywood brand used its voice to raise awareness about Alzheimer's disease. The ad tells a little story of an ageing couple and a carpenter who wants to bring a smile to their faces.

The three-and-a-half-minute-long film brings to the fore the everyday hardships of a person living with Alzheimer's and how the lives of caregivers also change.

According to Sociowash who conceptualised the ad, Century insisted that Alzheimer's be the primary theme and the brand should only come in second.
The spot is a lesson in poignant storytelling, which helped the brand create a lot of chatter around it.

5-Star

Mondelez India recently uncovered something that was hiding in plain sight -- that every app in the world was unintentionally promoting its chocolate bar brand Cadbury 5-Star.

The 'Do Nothing' campaign was another doozie from the Cadbury and Ogilvy camp this fortnight. The one-of-a-kind #5StarsEverywhere campaign was based on the insight that the ubiquitous 5-star rating system was in fact the 5-Star logo. Hence, every app in the world asking for a rating was in fact, unconsciously promoting the brand.

"Cadbury 5 Star jumped at this opportunity and made itself synonymous to ratings across the board, essentially hijacking every app platform and smartly turning it around to be an ad for the chocolate," said the company.

In our books, it gets 5 stars for innovation and insight.

The Hershey Company

Indians have a hazy idea of what Halloween truly means. Although they have taken a shine towards dressing up as ghouls and goblins for the festival, the trick-or-treating concept remains comparatively unknown. That's where Hershey's comes in.

The American confectionery brand has been tied to Halloween for decades, manufacturing bite-sized candy bars for the trick-or-treat during the season.

This association with Halloween makes Hershey's the perfect brand to introduce its Indian market to the festival.

This fortnight, the company launched its first-ever Halloween campaign #HersheyliciousHalloween to "carry on its global legacy" and to familiarise its Indian audience with the fest.

The digital film for the brand opens with a kid preparing his ghost costume for trick-or-treating. However, he is met with lukewarm to cold responses from his neighbours. The kid is dejected at not receiving any candy as he expected, but to his surprise, it's his neighbours who had played the ultimate "trick." In the end, they come together to celebrate Halloween, much to the child's delight.