Relief in the time of pandemic, via a soothing head massage

It has been an unusually quiet time in the woodlands for the last few weeks, with the humans squirrelled away sheltering at home due to a sweeping pandemic. While Ad Nut welcomes the time to romp worry free and admire the spring blossoms, one hears that the humans are trying to balance working from home and running their homes simultaneously—and stressing out about doing both tasks meaningfully. 

As they have tried to adjust to confinement, some old practices have been dusted off and used to encourage bonding among family members, who would otherwise be quarrelling over whose streaming movie is killing whose video game play. Ad Nut was recently pointed to the (north) Indian practice of champi, or an oil massage, which, like a rowing machine that is now used to dry laundry, had been mostly forgotten. 

Specifically, this creature was pointed to a recent TikTok campaign devised by VMLY&R for Marico's Parachute hair oil brand (#champibeats), which sought to (re)build some connections among family members who're otherwise buried in their own work or other pursuits. Faced with an unending stream of negative news, Parachute Advansed decided to bring the champi back into the lives of consumers, at a time when the brand felt it was needed most.

The brand hosted a #ChampiBeats challenge on TikTok, encouraging consumers to give a champi to their loved ones. Prominent TV celebrities and TikTok influencers took up the challenge and created champi videos with their family members, and then encouraged their fans to do the same. It appeared a big hit, rocketing to 10 billion (yes, with a "b") views in six days and now screaming past 15 billion. 

While this nut lauds Parachute for being able to piece this campaign together to help consumers stay connected, one should probably take such eye-popping figures with a healthy dose of scepticism. A little birdy told Ad Nut that TikTok counts views based on the number of times a video starts to play—with no minimum time—and of course videos play on a loop. (The humans at Campaign Asia-Pacific plan to look into this further.)

Anyway, the videos are fun, and Ad Nut is always happy to see wholesome family bonding (although Ad Nut's lustrous fur needs no special maintenance).

CREDITS

Agency: VMLY&R India
CEO: Anil Nair
CCO: Venkatagiri Rao
Creative Group Head : Mahesh Ambaliya
ECD: Kevin Lobo
Creative Team: Mahesh Ambaliya, Sunil Shinde, Harish Jadhav, Shivali Sharma, Ashwini Bhavsar, Mihir Joshi
Business Director: Alpa Dedhia
Group Head Client Solutions: Khadija Attarwala
Client Solutions Executive: Sejal Choudhary 

Ad Nut is a surprisingly literate woodland creature that for unknown reasons has an unhealthy obsession with advertising. Ad Nut gathers ads from all over Asia and the world for your viewing pleasure, because Ad Nut loves you. You can also check out Ad Nut's Advertising Hall of Fame, or read about Ad Nut's strange obsession with 'murderous beasts'.