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MUMBAI: Ogilvy Mumbai launches first ever TV commercial for Scrabble in India. The commercial was released in December of 2010.
"Infotainment is a much abused portmanteau word. Used in the context of television, it refers to programmes that provide both information and entertainment. But long before television coined this word, there was a board game that provided infotainment: Scrabble. This delightful game improves children‘s word power without ever giving them a whiff of its educational value -- making not just the children but their parents happy too," says Sumanto Chattopadhyay, Executive Creative Director South Asia. He continued, "In keeping with the genre of infotainment, the Scrabble TVC appeals to children‘s sense of mischievous fun, by showing them how knowing big words can get them out of tight spots. Of course, parents viewing the commercial would read between the lines and know that Scrabble promotes learning in a manner that children would be receptive to. They would likely be convinced to go out and purchase this winning tool with which to boost their child‘s English vocabulary, something so essential to finding one‘s way in today‘s world.
Incidentally, the word infotainment has a score of 17 in Scrabble!"
"This commercial shows that knowing big words isn‘t boring. In fact, it‘s so much fun that now a child will learn big words to use it to his advantage. And nothing excites a parent more than seeing their children learn big words on their own," said Sukesh Kumar Nayak, Senior Creative Director.
Heeral Akhaury, Senior Creative Director said "The more words you know the smarter you get and this was a great way to demonstrate it. Being a mother of 2 kids, its always been a challenge to get them to learn new words. The commercial not only did that, in the bargain I too added some new words to my vocabulary."
"The learning was that Scrabble is not a self starter game and does not feature very high among the kids favourite unlike other board games. Therefore the challenge was to position Scrabble as a fun game that also enhances your vocabulary. The TVC clearly communicates that Smart kids play Scrabble," said Ajay Mehta, Client Services Director.
"Scrabble is easily the world‘s most-popular word game, having sold more than 150 million sets in 30 languages in the last sixty years. Compared to its compatriots, Scrabble stands apart as a game that not only promotes a sense of competition and fair play, but at its core is all about "Fun with words". The fact that you get ‘smarter with words as you play more Scrabble‘, was precisely the point we make in the current TVC. We feel that this is a viewpoint that will resonate strongly among Scrabble enthusiasts across all ages throughout the country," said Rahul Bhowmik, Head - Marketing, Mattel Toys India Pvt. Ltd.
