Oh Brother.

I swear I have done this before.

I am not able to place it correctly but we had talked in quite a lot of detail about the long list of reasons why ads like these don’t and will not work. In fact, they will erode your salience in the market.

Oh yea. It was this.

And this.

And recently, this.

All of these have something intertwined among them. All failed spectacularly. All failed for the same reason. A brand shoving some superfluous purpose down their throat.

This is a common disease among certain marketers. This is the same cohort of ‘genius’ marketers who think the following:

• Loyalty drives volumes
• 20% of my buyers bring 80% of my revenues
• Brand love exists. People love my brand
• People love when a brand speaks purpose
• People buy purpose-led brands
• People love brands that teach them how to live
• Differentiate or die

Lets get into the Bournvita ad first, and more importantly, what is so wrong with it?

Well, show this to ad to 10 random people you know for 10 secs and then ask them what was it trying to communicate?

Is Bournvita, a sugar-based chocolate milk drink making house-cleaning, toilet-cleaning products as well now?

Are they taking a moral stance?

I have no idea what this ad is trying to say or what they want me to do as a consequence. Something about Cadbury making a new flavour for kids who don’t like jobs?

Is that a ketchup/ glue bottle? I have NO idea what the heck is this trying to achieve.

The idea and execution are so forced, its ironical the name of the campaign is called ‘Forced Packs’. A bit rich for the brand to be talking about inclusivity after harping for decades about the need for kids to win at all costs.

Obviously you will win after taking 100g of Bournvita which has 37g Sugar.

Right?

Lets try to understand where the bright folks at Ogilvy and Mondelez were coming from.

The brand’s ‘Forced Pack’ campaign aimed to sensitise parents against forcing kids into preset career moulds. To make a point, the brand showcased the product in containers meant for other items such as tissue holder, disinfectant, ketchup bottle instead of a regular Bournvita packaging. The objective of the campaign is to convey to parents that they should not force their children to be something they are not meant to be.

If the idea was to shock and awe the audience by showing a ‘healthy drink’ in a disinfectant bottle. Well guys, you won the jackpot.

Forced extension of previous campaigns

Many of you may remember earlier campaigns of Bournvita. The famous #TaiyaariJeetKi campaigns, where the mother is pushing the boy to achieve all the success he deserves. Bournvita has been lately shifting its narrative towards a more encompassing and hotter topic of “mental wellbeing”. But this is not how you do it. This campaign takes a much bolder and more aggressive stance on the well-being of kids and shifts the narrative towards its target audience — the parents.

Just what parents and general audience love. Virtue signalling from a brand.

While there is merit in making a brand stand out to a 21st century consumer bombarded with information and misinformation, this kind of forced virtue signaling will neither drive penetration nor sustain mental structures, that the brand wants to.

Purpose fails. Often.

Purpose often fails. But perhaps it is so hard to fix because this failure can come in many shapes and sizes. Purpose can fail when a brand reaches too high and tries to build a purpose that is too lofty. Here, purpose becomes the ever-feared fluff. Purpose can fail when it merely latches onto the movement of the moment, without much consideration or plan to stay the course. Purpose here becomes painfully hollow. Purpose can fail when it doesn’t tether itself to the product or category in some way. This failure can be harder to detect because we often don’t see it right away. These are the purposes that are easy to abandon because they almost always sit to the side of the business’s actual operations. This kind of purpose is forgettable. Even though all may be well-intentioned, they are largely ineffective.

At best, this is a strong contender for the Worst Forced Metaphor category at Cannes next year.