Whats up with Little Big Film Makers

Unilever’s detergent brand Surf Excel has partnered with the Star Network’s Tamil offering to create a one hour television show–‘Surf Excel Little Big Film Makers’ (LBFM) that has helped the brand to engage with consumers in three cities in Tamil Nadu – Madurai, Coimbatore and Chennai. The initiative kicked off in early February this year.

Based on the brief by the sponsors, Vijay TV gave an opportunity to children between 8 and 14 years of age in the three cities to tell a story that highlighted the concept “Dirt is good” (‘Daag aache hai). Surf Excel had started using the tag line Daag aache hai sometime towards the end of 2005 and continues to use it even today in many of its television commercials and promos. Exciting and interesting stories were identified and shortlisted by the show judges - leading director A.R. Murugadoss and actor Suhasini Maniratnam.

Vijay TV says that it has conducted road shows in the selected cities and had hundreds of school children participate in narrating their ideas. Eight of the selected stories told by these kids were converted into ad films by three ad film makers – Roshni Chandra and Socrates
from Primary Colours, Balaji from Reel Root and Sendil from Phoenix Films under guidance from the authors of the stories. LBFM went on air a few weeks ago on the Sunday morning 10 am slot and Vijay TV will be airing the tenth episode and the grand finale of LBFM on April 24 at 10 am.

“Tamil Nadu is an important market; as a matter of fact, it is the largest market for us. This initiative was more for consumer engagement and we may have similar programmes with other channels if the opportunity arises,” explained Surf Excel brand manager Tanveer Khan.

“Our current on-air ‘Daag aache hain’ campaign has been created by our agency Lowe. We may use the eight short films which are about 2 to 2 and a half minutes long each in cinema theatres and selectively on television,” revealed Khan.

The eight selected stories that have been made into ad films are:Happy Birthday Patti” by Abhinaya (a short and sweet film about how a little girl whips up a surprise for her dear grandmother on her birthday); Kitchen Galatta by Evangeline (a fun film about a father and son who decide to surprise the mother with a lunch prepared by them in the kitchen); Anbulla Amma by Vasundhara (an emotional tale of a girl and her prized artwork that she presents to her parents before leaving for boarding school); My new friend by Rahul (a story of how a new boy in the class is bullied in the class and his new classmate comes to his rescue and they become friends; Thaatha’s Treasure by Raja (a story of magic and hidden treasure, little Tejas is out to seek a hidden treasure for his grandmother); Chutti Ponnu by Ziya (a story of little girl Riya, who saves her friend the waiter from an angry customer at her birthday party); Chicken Champion (the writer Arun Balaji has written the chicken story as two boys become friends over a chicken coop); and Muniyamma by Abhay (a tale of a boy who goes out of his way to help a distressed woman on the street).

Vijay TV will be airing the eight ad films during the grand finale and present awards to the children that helped create them. As a part of the festivities, special performances by the contestants of Junior Super Stars - Lakshmi, Alsabeth, Priyanka, Balasarangan, Jayanth and Shanmugapriya and dance performance by Junior Jodis Rinson & Gabriella will be aired during the grand finale.