Robotic tale from Thailand pulls human heartstrings

Client: King Power Thailand

Agency: Y&R Thailand

Market: Thailand

Campaign scope: TV, outdoor, print, digital

Details: A young boy excitedly anticipates a toy robot that his father is bringing back from a business trip. When his mother wakes him up in the morning to say, “Your father will be back today,” the boy begins shouting at the top of his lungs: “Robot, robot, robot”, like it’s all he can think about. Through a series of quick transitions accompanied by an amusing soundtrack, we see the boy playing in the living room and receiving a shower from his mother, who by that point is rolling her eyes and wishing that she never told him. We see scenes of the father purchasing the robot.

The front door suddenly flings open. The music stops. The father walks in holding the robot and the son turns, runs, and jumps up to hug his father without letting go for a second. We see a close-up of the boy’s face. The father asks, “but what about the robot?”  The ad concludes with the line, ‘Longing is Precious’.

On YouTube, the Thai video has exceeded a million views after four weeks and the English subtitled-version has garnered thousands of additional views.

Press release quote: Oliver Kittipong Veerataecha, planning head, Y&R Thailand: “This year King Power celebrates 25 years in the business with a revised emphasis on the company’s purpose as ‘the duty free that understands travellers’. The objective for this campaign is to bridge the relevancy gap and create brand affinity; to be a worldly, truly understanding brand.”

Comments: The video makes excellent use of pacing—knowing when to speed up and slow down, in order to pack an effective emotional punch into 45 seconds. It's also clever in that it reinforces the obligation for parents traveling on business to bring home a toy, while simultaneously letting them enjoy the idea that their return is what their children will really treasure.  

Previously: There must be some new dads at work at Y&R Thailand; the agency also used father-child relations to great effect in this recent work for Dtac, which has more than 17 million views.

Credits: The agency prefers to credit “All Y&R Thailand” rather listing all individuals.