Mentos creates a ‘batti jalao’ ‘murder mystery’ riddle

Perfetti Van Melle India’s confectionery brand Mentos has taken its ‘Dimaag ki batti jala de’ platform further in its latest campaign. The ‘Batti jalao’ film presents a riddle comprised of unconnected instances with the characteristic humour of Mentos, and leads viewers to a contest with a cash prize of Rs 25 lakhs.

The film begins with a bulb lighting up and the voice over announcing the possibility of the viewer winning Rs 25 lakhs in the next 40 seconds. The film shows seeming unrelated snippets as the voiceover asks: “If Sumi is walking on grass, if a particular type of drum is called thavil in Tamil Nadu, if balloons were alive, if the harmonium was not invented in India,  if Raju is sleeping peacefully, if Simon doesn’t understand English and if papers are made from trees, then tell us - who is the killer?” The film ends asking viewers to send a sms or call the number 08130606060 to win the promised cash prize.

On the campaign, Nikhil Sharma, director - marketing, Perfetti Van Melle India said, “The hope with this campaign is that we can engage our consumers in an interesting and never-done-before way. With this communication, we have taken a leap and thrown a challenge to the consumers to solve a bizarre mystery. The entire look and feel for this is witty and humorous.”

Abhijit Avasthi, national creative director, Ogilvy India, added, “With a brand as fun and iconic as Mentos, there's always this huge question: what next? It's not easy to catch people by surprise and leave them with a laugh time after time, but we've done it yet one more time. And with the 'Riddle' campaign we've gone a step ahead by giving them something that will play on their minds even after they find out the answer.”

Piyush Pandey, executive chairman and creative director, South Asia Ogilvy & Mather, who has also lent his voice to the film, added, "There comes a time in a brand's journey where it must do something startling, something radical, even if what it has been doing before has worked really well. The new Mentos 'Riddle' campaign does exactly that. It takes a new leap without letting go of the essence of the brand."

Responses are also being accepted on digital media where the campaign was launched. The contest is being promoted online with the film and clues to the riddle. The contest can be accessed at www.mentosindia.com and http://mentosindia.mobi. Another mobile platform is the Mentos bot in a chat aggregator, created for Mentos by Nimbuzz.

Credits
 

Client: Mentos (Perfetti Van Melle India Pvt. Ltd.)
Client team: Nikhil Sharma, Preeti Bhatnagar, Manpreet Johal, Alok Raj
Agency: Ogilvy & Mather
Creative team: Piyush Pandey, Abhijit Avasthi, Anurag Agnihotri, Ashish Naik, Saurabh Kulkarni, Nasrulla Husami, Sofia Ashraf, Mathanki Kodavasal, Saurabh Dikshit & Abhijeet Patil
Account management team: Antara Suri, Parul Madaan and Vaibhav Bhardwaj
Production house: Soda Films
Director: Rajesh Krishnan, Producer: Ameya Dahibavkar

Updated on 18 March at 10:00 hours