Sumedha Srivastav - Televisionpoint.com | Mumbai
Why do kids love jumping in a puddle, even though the sides of the roads are pretty clean ? Why do kids like to take apart their new toys in an attempt to investigate what is inside them ? Why do kids use freshly painted walls as their drawing boards ?

Confused ? Don't be, for Kidzee, the chain of pre-schools from the Essel Group, in its recently launched TV campaign is showcasing a montage of cute habits of small children. The campaign has been designed with an aim to promote and spread awareness about its pre-schools and also to spread the message that 'every child is born unique.'

The creative team was asked to think like a two-year old, as Ashok Karnik, executive creative director, Ignitee reveals the idea behind the concept.

"The inspiration for the film came from my own personal one. I remember whenever I used to get a gift for my son, when he was a year or two, he would just leave the toy alone. Instead, he used to grab the box and the wrapping paper and tear them into pieces and the toy would just lie around. I later found out that every kid would do something similar that would amuse and amaze their parents," Karnik avers.

The commercial, which was shot in Mumbai at two different locations, looks like a collage of situations depicting the lives of little children – be it drawing on the wall, tearing apart the toys, making funny faces, et al.

The creative team had just two days to shoot the commercial and it's never an easy task when there are kids involved – and not just one but a whole bunch of them.

It is a real tall order to make the kids act, as Karnik rightly points out, "It is a real challenge to shoot with two and three-year-olds, as they don't take instructions easily. We had to wait patiently till they settled down and gave that perfect expression and acted as per the demand of the script. We even worked out several situations and told the kids to enact them. It all seems very easy after you watch the commercial. But it was a great challenge."

The two days of shooting was followed by a week for the post-production. Produced by Jigsaw Films and directed by Narayan Shi, the commercial is 30 seconds long with voiceover's in English & Hindi. Interestingly, the kids in the commercial were fresh faces and had never faced the camera before. But surprisingly they were quite comfortable and natural on the sets.

Karnik further adds, "The funniest part of the shoot was that while the kids behaved pretty well, their parents were over excited, and some of them were quite stressed out, wondering whether their child would perform well or not. I happened to enter a room during the break and I saw a parent directing their two-year-old kid how to actually act."

The ad is primarily targeted at young parents, anxious to get their children admissions. The pester power of kids has always ruled the ad world and this one too is not an exception! After all thinking differently is not child's play.