Horlicks and A R Rahman collaborate for ‘Fearless Songs’

In the second year of the ‘Be Fearless’ campaign, Horlicks endeavours to provide an engaging way of helping kids prepare for their exams and overcome the effects of rote memorization

New Delhi.  With the exam season looming, Horlicks aims at making learning productive and fun for students with their new campaign ‘Fearless Songs’. Introducing a refreshing take on learning, the brand collaborated with music maestro A R Rahman to produce an interactive music video for kids.

During exams, kids often lose their ingenuity while learning under the pressure, of performing better. Horlicks recognized this gap and focused on providing alternate learning techniques which could help in better memorization for kids through music.

‘The Fearless Songs’ journey, which began in 2018 in West Bengal, collaborated with famous singer – Rupam Islam, to make learning easier for students. In an interactive video, Horlicks and Rupam Islam demystified the intricate formulas of Chemistry by associating them with our daily lives. With a remarkable success and response for the first song, Horlicks introduced the campaign nationally, this year.

A nationwide rollout by tying up with possibly the biggest music maestro in India – A R Rahman, who makes a similar attempt with Tenses this time. The maestro explains the Present Perfect tense through his composition with a HPP hack.  The selection of topics for the songs (Chemistry formulae and Tenses) is backed by research and these were shortlisted basis the Google search data for middle school children.

With ‘Fearless Songs’, Horlicks continues to advocate the confidence to tackle exams with better preparation. The idea stems from the fact that music plays a key role in unlocking learning and memorization. With music, even the most annoying topics can be transformed into enjoyable songs, possibly helping kids to be more attentive and concentrate better. ‘Fearless Songs’ will help kids to shed exam jitters and greet each challenge with a fearless smile. The film has been created by FCB India.

About the Film:

The story of a kid struggling with learning his English tenses we see how he uses music to better understand the topic.

The film starts with a kid sitting in a bus dazed and confused while trying to understand tenses from his course book. We then cut to a classroom where A.R. Rahman appears as an English teacher and tutors the child on a simple hack to remember the topic using Music.

The film transition through the school with the kid becoming more and more confident as the whole class chimes in to help the protagonist learn. Finally, through a grand finale, the kid understands how tenses are to be used.

The entire film has a musical feel towards it which is highlighted with the presence of A. R. Rahman.

Link to the film: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iXh4ebvUyd4

Excerpts from Spokesperson

Vikram Bahl, Executive Vice President Marketing, GSK Consumer Healthcare India said, “We at Horlicks understand the stress that students undergo during the exam season. After laying the groundwork to tackle exams with confidence last year with the ‘Be Fearless’ campaign, Horlicks endeavors to continue making learning more productive, this time using music. Hence, we collaborated with music maestro AR Rahman, who with his exceptional musical talent, helped us create a composition on Tenses, one of the top searched topics by kids during exam time. He is the perfect fit for the campaign, considering his connect with the masses and with the brand in his growing up years. We want kids to face the exam season confidently, by promoting smarter and alternate learning methods, which we believe help in better understanding and retention of tough topics and therefore make kids more confident to tackle exams.”

AR Rahman on his collaboration with Horlicks said, “I believe it is important for me to connect to the gennext ‘s cause and the brand, during a collaboration. Horlicks was a part of my childhood, like I grew up with music, and the brand resonates with me. Music brings out the best in children and with “Fearless Songs” we intend to add a musical twist to learning and reduce the immense pressure kids face during the exam season, enabling the journey from fearful to fearless!”

Swati Bhattacharya, CCO, FCB said January to March are exam pressure months all over India, that’s 90 days out of 365 gone out of a child’s life. So, the brief we gave ourselves was how could we bring the childhood back? By using music as an unlock to help the child prepare for exams, we helped reduce fear and made preparation more enjoyable. The fearless songs were written keeping the curriculum of children in mind, helping them not to memorise, but understand and retain them better.