Ads & Ends
Nanette Franco-Diyco
“SA MGA UMAGANG kulang sa oras, (During mornings that lack time) kailangan ligo-GO, (You must bathe – GO!)
bihis – BILIS (Dress up – fast!), breakfast – ER! (Take your breakfast faster!)”
These are the opening lines of the brand new television commercial of Bear Brand Busog Lusog. That’s actually the brand name of the product, a variant of Bear Brand which means nutritious and filling.
The video dramatizes what every little boy or girl goes through when kindergarten and grade school classes begin at the ungodly hour of 7:30 a.m. Director Carlo Directo captured the mad rush principally led by the mother (and in real life, followed by the yaya [nursemaid] and nearly the entire household!) to get the child to school. This, too, was the confession of the director whose two daughters are in Grade 2 and Grade 4. I’m sure his true-to-life every day experience contributed to the ultra-genuiness of the TV 30-seconder.
Publicis Manila account director Meg Cabanes emphasized that “every mother wants to ensure that her child is prepared for the day, so having a filling breakfast is really important. Admittedly, there are mornings that are rushed and Bear Brand Busog Lusog is a good breakfast complement that will enable mothers to serve what’s nutritious and filling.”
The commercial begins briefly with a little boy fast asleep covered warmly with a blanket lulled seemingly further to sleep accompanied by soft chimes simulating some child’s lullaby.
Suddenly, the boy’s blanket is yanked off him, music is radically changed to fast speed, and mother dear physically leads the boy to bathe fast, to dress up fast, and to take breakfast fast. The director employed fast cuts “showing the before and after and no in-between scenes.” The result dramatizes a hurried and faster pace throughout. “No gimmicks — just well placed cuts and timely changes of pacing, and good acting.”
In a blink, the boy has bathed, is dressed up, and is now all ready for a fast breakfast.
The commercial features Star Magic’s newest child actor Xymon Pineda who stars with Coco Martin in ABS CBN’s current hit teleserye, Ang Probinsyano. I noted that the boy doesn’t act “to be cute”; neither does he over-act. We see him waking up startled, then he meekly follows the harrassed ministrations of the mother. Director Carlo did describe him as professional and easy to direct — obviously learning from all these months of shooting the teleserye.
It is a fact that the most difficult to direct are generally animals and kids. It stands to reason that there is a palpable advantage to cast children with more than a semblance of acting experience, specially when commercials’ launch dates are pegged and deadlines loom over the creative agency and production house.
The product window delivers clearly Nestle’s all-important selling message for the newly formulated product: Bear Brand Busog Lusog is an exciting cereal milk drink that can be served as a companion for kids’ breakfast. It has twice the amount of flakes so it’s filling (versus a previous formulation) and twice the amount of milk so it’s more nutritious (versus the previous formulation).
The solution demonstrated in the product window is indeed hard-sell, but the totality of the frames which relate the problem makes the commercial a nice family slice-of-life story that warms any parent’s heart.
Take a bow, Nestle Philippines, Publicis Manila and Pabrika.
Credits. Client-company, Nestle Philippines, Inc George Badaros, business executive manager; Paolo Mercado, marketing and consumer communication head; Jayel Ladioray, creative services head; Nikki Sugay, consumer marketing manager.
Creative agency, Publicis Manila: Matec Villanueva, chairman and CEO; Alistair Wood, chief creative officer; Paolo Fabregas, executive creative director; Reinard Santos, associate creative director; Angela Mendoza, senior copywriter; Josef Olaybal, art director; Marlen del Rosario, division manager; Pamy Hernandez, business unit director; Arvon Fernandez, associate business unit director; Meg Cabanes, account director; Anna Domingo, project manager; Malou Betco, strategic planning manager; Mark Dehesa, strategic planner.
Production team: Film Pabrika, production house; Carlo Directo, director; June King Austria, acting director; Jem Lim/Denise Talaba, producers, Just Add Water; Adelina Leung, set design; Enric Munchua, caster; Marivic San Juan, executive producer.
Nanette Franco-Diyco ended her 15th year advertising career as Vice-President of JWT, segueing into the world of academe, currently teaching communications at the Ateneo de Manila University.
nanettediyco131@gmail.com
