It turns out I am one fat bastard.

Yup, thanks to the Level 4 COVID-19 lockdown whatever summer body I had is now definitely a fit for winter body, but with extras.

You see the daily grind of trying to keep up my step count is slightly flawed as most of those steps always led me to the fridge and then when you combine that with the only exercise I have been doing which is jumping to conclusions or running around in circles trying to find something to keep the kids entertained, I am in an uphill battle. So needless to say my summer body disappeared very quickly.

 So here I am, one fat bastard and in need of a magic solution to help me get back into shape. It turns out, there is help after all in the form of a magic little pill and it comes from the only place in the world that can truly sell magic pills, Thailand.

No, I am not talking about that magic pill that you had in your 20’s in Haad Rin during the Full Moon Festival. Nope, this is a pill that is so much better than that, it’s a weight loss pill that stops bad oils and fats from entering your body. Both of which I desperately need stopping from entering my gut right now.

So how do I know about this magic pill? From a TV ad of course, and no not one of those infomercials you would normally see magic pills on but a TV ad that is probably one of the funniest and culturally relevant pieces of film I have seen in a while. This is not surprising as it’s out of Thailand and they have a habit of making films that you take notice of with ideas that you have no idea of how they had that or even sold it. But I am glad they did. It was so good that not only the Thai’s loved it but the whole world started talking about it and it’s one of those pieces when I saw it I immediately wish I had done it.

Let me start at the beginning, imagine you are a creative getting a brief to sell a weight loss pill with an ingredient called Chitosan that stops fat and oils from entering your body. Oh, and by the way you have to use a celebrity. If you aren’t aware of the Thai advertising landscape, celebrities are mandatory for everything. But wow, most creatives would roll their eyes at that brief. But not the creative team at McCann Bangkok.

What I love about this is how the creatives solved this problem and used all of the above to bring this idea to life. In the end, they not only created an entertaining, funny and culturally relevant piece of work but did it with a simple product demo explaining exactly what it does, how it does it and who endorses it. But unlike anything we had seen before.

Imagine this, an opening shot of a giant pill sitting in the middle of the road, then a cop breaks out of the pill. Yes, a cop. Then that cop stops a car filled with fatty meat. Yes, fatty meat. Then the cop wants to arrest the driver for carrying fatty meat. An argument begins. Then from the distance, another road user arrives. A motorcyclist and his oil filled bike. Yes, oil in his engine. More chaos ensues with a ridiculous argument. Things then get weird with elephants and horses being a part of the said argument. Then a giant celebrity appears. Arguments continue followed by the cop talking to the camera. Everyone laughs. We then end with the giant celebrity standing next to an even bigger packshot. Great, now let’s make this.

Now the only way something like this could work is if you had a great director like Thanonchai Sornsriwichai. His amazing ability to create something so entertaining with such a simple set up is genius in itself. Then there is the casting, the directing of the cast to let the humour develop naturally over the 3 minutes and combine that with the hard sell and a celebrity and this is what we see today. The end product is something that is not only funny and culturally relevant but a simple product demo that sells us all the benefits of this little magic pill most interestingly and memorably. 

I only wish that on my way to the fridge that I had a cop like Chitosan arresting all the fatty meat on its way to my waist.

Enjoy.

I Wish I Had Done That.