Sugar causes tooth decay by interacting with the bacteria in plaque to produce acid. This acid

dissolves the teeth’s enamel to create cavities.

According to the Oral Health Observatory, Indians are the world’s largest consumers of sugary food, in quantity and frequency. Adding on to the high sugar diet, Indian parents use traditional sweets and modern sugary food and beverages as reward for children’s achievements and good deeds.

The frequent use of rewards in Indian parenting led to 70% of Indian children having been affected by tooth decay at some point in their childhood.

The oral health category has historically focused on habit-building to promote products designed for brushing twice daily. Communications are thus used as a tool to tell consumers WHAT to do, rather than to educate about WHY.

Pepsodent wants to change this.

The brief: Fight children’s cavities by getting parents to understand that sweets contribute to cavities.

The film opens with a boy singing and playing the sitar, an instrument used in Hindustani classical music. The family is enthralled by this brilliant performance. His uncle then pulls out two electric drills as reward, much to the delight of the boy.

The film then transitions to scenes of the boy showing his achievements in martial arts, the good deed of massaging his grandmother’s head, and winning the best-dressed competition, and for every act he is rewarded with the same strange reward – electric drills.

On his birthday, his family celebrates with an electric drill that the boy is tempted to dig into. That’s when the drill transforms to a birthday cake with the thought-provoking message: “Are we rewarding our kids with sweets or cavities?”

Pepsodent’s 12-hour germ protection toothpaste, which fights cavities, appears in closing as the boy spit out the drills and shows his unharmed, beautiful teeth.

With this communication, Pepsodent has started on the journey to educate parents and families, about the impact of their well meaning rewards in the form of sweets, on their child's oral health.

We aim to INDELIBLY LINK SWEETS WITH TOOTH DECAY in parents' minds.

However, given how deeply entrenched sugar is in the Indian household as sweets that are the currency of rewards for good behaviour and achievements, we also recognise that it would be naive to imagine that we will be able to reduce the consumption occasions or eradicate this cultural practice altogether.

Our focus therefore is to champion good oral hygiene with the right products, as the key to protect children from cavities - so the unavoidable sweets are not harmful. This film is our first initiative toward the cause. Coming soon is a full-fledged campaign to amplify this message which will have tangible results for multiple metrics.