The Hindu Business Line : Staying connected

VYING for the mindspace of the youth, this campaign on the instant messaging service, the most preferred communication tool of the MTV generation, apes the Beatlemania of the '60s to communicate the advantages of MSN Messenger in discovering a community of the like-minded - a distinct feature of such services.

The film begins with the visual of a cavern, host to a raucous rock music gala. Strange people with stranger names take the stage to compete. They blow up the floor to qualify. The next name on the list astonishes the crowd. . A fledgling Young Turk named Paul with a mop-top haircut sings Yesterday but is rejected by the weird jury. The voice-over questions `Don't fit in?' What follows in the commercial is a life-like feel of Paul using the many features of MSN's instant messaging service which finally enables a non-conformist like him to find his own community. The last frame runs with a predictable voice-over that retorts "And who knows where this could go?" pointing that Paul finds his foursome band and an audience of pop aficionados.

"The brief was to convey that instant messaging had grown from just sending messages to an advanced level of sharing files, photos, chatting with friends and relatives on the Web camera," says a spokesperson for MSN India. "When we studied the messaging patterns of youth within the 16-24 age group, we realised that they were very different from business users. There was this great need to share things and hang out with their friends. We wanted to bring forth the relevance of the product in the life of our consumer," he adds.

The ad campaign borrows from the Beatles with its obvious reference to Paul, the song Yesterday, the foursome with the Beatle haircut shown in the last frame. The Beatles need no introduction. The quartet of John, Paul, George and Ringo took the world by storm and is still admired for its perfect rendition of lyrics and music, arguably holding the position of `the best boy band ever.'

The idea behind this film was to demonstrate the fantastic things that can happen on MSN Messenger to people who share similar interests. Therefore, the Beatle-like characters were symbolically used to demonstrate how four individuals with similar likes and interests could get together, says Indrajeet Mookerjee, Associate Vice-President, Euro RSCG. Also noteworthy is that the earlier series of ads, also created by Euro RSCG, had a very local touch to it. Like the Maine Pyaar Kiya ads, which showed the actress sending love notes through a pet dove and later being told that MSN Messenger was a better way to communicate or the rude shock a young girl receives after calling up her friend in California, which again ends with a similar message.

The international feel was introduced to appeal to the Indian audience as he/she is as trendy as their counterpart overseas and therefore the film will instantly connect with the audience, says Mookerjee. The ad strategy also shifts from conveying `the better way to communicate' platform to showcase the gamut of product features from MSN Messenger other than chatting.

"Chatting today can be done on the mobile phone also, and we had to broadbase the offering and communicate that experiential differentiation that the MSN Messenger presents," Mookerjee adds. Creative Director Ashish Chakravarthy of Euro RSCG conceived the creatives for the ad. This 45-second ad film was directed by Dibankar Bannerjee. Tata Elxsi executed the animation, which attributes a life-like premise to something as virtual and yet so real as instant messaging. In spite of the foreign feel recreated by Dibankar Bannerjee, all models were picked from India - a few of them were international students and the whole film was shot in Mumbai.

The TVC is currently being splashed across youth-centric channels such as HBO and Channel V in their prime-time slots and during commercial intervals in some movies. According to the MSN spokesperson, this campaign will be extended further to below-the-line promotions by introducing fun-filled activities in cybercafés.

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