How many ways can a brand of mosquito repellant advertise itself?
We have had the cream variety like Odomos for a few decades now.
Then the coil variety, pioneered by Tortoise.
The electric, smoke-free gadget with a ‘mat’ was launched in the 1990s.
Then came the liquid refill variety that we still use.
Brands have tried every trick in the book.
- Family shutting windows at 6pm desperately
- Kids stopping playing and rushing home to reach by 6pm shutting time
- What happens to people/families the next morning if their mosquito repellant is not adequately powerful
- Product-feature level communication (options in the device, timers etc.)
- How people react when mosquitos interrupt their day-to-day work (Tamil comedian Chinni Jayanth is very famous for his series of Tortoise coil ads where he’s trying, as an actor, to give his ‘shot’, but mosquitos bussing around him never allow him to finish)
- Exaggeration: The device turning into a mosquito eater!
- Exaggeration: Mosquitos, in the form of humans (for our familiarity and comfort) waiting outside a blood bank because humans are out of bounds now (because they all use Tortoise!)
- Exaggeration: Mosquitos silently trying to enter the home, only to be told by a lady that they are welcome but she cannot guarantee their safety
I’d assume that we users have become immune to mosquito repellant ads and the ads’ narrative has entered the generic category now.
I thought there cannot be another narrative that seems new. But here we are, courtesy the agency HeyLet’sGo! To be fair, the product is not a mosquito repellant, but a service! But, the end result being promised is the same – you won’t have mosquitos to worry about.
Mosquito Hunters is a service in the US that treats residential yards to avoid/repel mosquitos. In India, we use our Odomos creams and patches when we go out to the garden (or outside the home), or burn a Tortoise coil in our garden while sitting there, of course!
Even if the scene being depicted is akin to a zombie flick (human biting human), the background music is so cheerful and happy that you may not think of the zombie scene. The line that adds context, “You are more likely to get a mailman/grandma bite than a mosquito bite” uses macabre humor really well to hammer the promise 🙂
The scene of a human biting another is so stark that you are unlikely to forget it soon, along with what they are selling.
This narrative goes completely away from product/service led promises to use exaggeration to add a memorable context. It pushes the creative boundaries of how to sell protection from mosquitos, and when seen in the context of how many kinds of stories we have seen in India for this category, this new idea seems completely fresh and out of the box!