Helping Orphans?

I came across one of De- United Food’s Indomie noodles Feed Your Hero commercials the other day. It was my first time. The fact that I had written a piece pertaining to the campaign, made me put my ears to the ground. I was so glad when the ad was repeated two more times.

The ad opens up with a young girl calling out to her mom inquiring whether food was ready. Weighed down by a lack of immediate response, the girl decides to get creative. Sorry, a creative muse suddenly overtakes her. She sights a guitarist, and decides to be mischievous. Her choice of mischief is what turns the ad around. Against the backdrop of a sign, ‘Help the Orphans’ and joined by her friends and guitarist she makes a case for orphans. Her song draws many others -who as we are made to believe- abandon all they had on their hands to get to the source of the open air mini-music carnival. Expectantly her mother is also attracted by the sound and rushes to the arena. No, she walks to the place-with the food in her hand. It wouldn’t have made sense if she had to rush to the scene too. But she manages to baffle me by not expressing any surprise at the goings on. Surprisingly, she takes the music carnival in stride, evidenced by her smiles. I could see that they wanted us to believe that she was expecting the ensuing scenes.

Nonetheless, as the ad climaxes, I see people putting monies in a box. Apparently, they were donating to the orphans. Then the feeding part is spotlighted with the girl and guitarist been the only visible beneficiaries-sorry, Heroes- of the Indomie meal. And I begin to wonder why the ad shut out the orphans-the reason for all the noise. I thought orphans could be sighted easily on the street corners. And since the ad setting was at a street corner, they should have, in the least been given a place in the ad. The mini-music carnival would have been a nice platform for them to come in. And they would have appreciated the meal of Indomie noodles that was served only the girl and the guitarist! Besides, who were the heroes in the ad? The girl and the guitarist… No fight on that, but I thought society was replete with many cases of orphans who turned society around for good. Can’t orphans turn out to be heroes? Wouldn’t orphans appreciate a meal of Indomie? Shouldn’t the orphans be given some share of voice or face in the ad?

Addressing the apparent neglect or oversight of a face or voice of the orphans would have brought the message home. The commercial would have been more engaging. It would have carried along with it a high level of emotional attachment. It would have swayed more consumers to buy the Indomie brands since they would have emotionally believed that Indomie stood for the cause of the orphans. Maybe Indomie should go ahead and organize an Adopt-An-Orphan campaign. It would present a huge share of market and voice. It will also create long-lasting emotional dispositions by consumers with the Indomie brand. This would also pursue the cause of their corporate social responsibility.

Indomie please feed the real heroes.