Cadbury Creme Egg 'Have a Fling' Campaign

What did Jesus say when they nailed him to the cross? "Don't touch my f**king Easter eggs, I'll be back on Sunday".


So, with Easter approaching Cadburys are rolling out their Creme Egg range (I personally bloody love these, as does literally everyone else ever) and have a new campaign by Fallon London telling people to 'have a fling' with their chocolate egg. Simultaneously a social media campaign, created by Elvis, supports the fling message and provides an opportunity for Creme Egg fans to have their own flings with the brand. Cadbury Creme Egg Brand Manager, Stephanie Sarantakos, said: “This year will see Creme Egg return to its more playful side as we celebrate the nation’s favourite Easter treat. Due to its limited availability, we want to encourage fans to act spontaneously, give into their cravings and enjoy that moment of passion during the Cadbury Creme Egg season – it won’t last forever.”

Asides from the obvious logistical impracticalities of engaging in a physical relationship with a chocolate egg (been there: I can confirm that the egg did not come first,) unfortunately the advert just doesn't resonate as a particularly imaginative or engaging campaign. Now, I can see exactly [eggs-actly] what they're trying to achieve- the seasonal basis of the product rollout means that they're only available for a short time and thus the relationship of consumer with the product will only be temporary- hence, 'have a fling,' but I can't help feeling that the concept is a little contrived. Arguably they're forcing what is already quite a tenuous relationship between time-and-dating into an entire campaign. In my opinion the previous "How Do You Eat Yours?" was a fantastic campaign, open to humour and imagination, and positively engaging the consumer with the idiosyncrasies unique to the product (most people do eat them differently; I gulp them down in one without chewing, like a diabetic boa constrictor working as a fluffer). I think where that campaign succeeded where this one doesn't is in engaging with the consumer in questioning their own behaviour- making them actively think about how they themselves interact with, as opposed to merely consume, the product.

In my opinion this campaign falls far short of my expectations of the Creme Egg brand (luckily I already bloody love Creme Eggs, as I mentioned earlier,)  however the Creme Egg as a product is strong enough in its own right to weather most advertising banality, but I'll be honest in admitting that I did expect more from Cadbury's in blowing the fanfare for 2013's rollout. They're part of that small band of edibles that are encouraged to be physically played with (along with products such as Alphabites, chocolate cigarettes, cheesestrings, etc.) and I think sticking to playing to their strengths would be far more effective in engaging the consumer.

How do you eat yours? "With great difficulty".

Priceless.

Bad Company Name

''Sixth Sick Sheik’s Sixth Sheep’s Sick''

Even as an acronym it rates pretty poorly.

New Diet Coke Hunk

Watching television at home- probably just in my pants with a couple of Hob Nobs balanced on my stomach [calm down, ladies]- when suddenly:


*Bad-da-dada-da-da! Dee-yoo, dee-yyooO! Bad-da-dada-da-da! Dee-yoo, dee-yyooO!*

[Instantly:] Diet Coke?

"AAAhh don't want you to be no slave..." *bad-da-dada-da-da!* "AAAhh don't want you to work all day..."

[Confirmed:] Diet Coke.


Such is the affinity of Etta James' 'I Just Want to Make Love to You' with the Diet Coke brand that it only takes the first few bars of the song for the comparison to made in the mind of consumer- whether male or female. In a way it could be said that Diet Coke almost owns that song, and the brand, specifically Diet Coke, has built up an institution around that original Hunk, when it first flipped the traditional gender roles on their back in 1994 [I know, 1994, right!].

The 1990s photo quality makes it look a little voyeuristic... like secret camera footage...?

So with this in mind it is not surprising that to celebrate its 30th birthday Diet Coke are releasing a fourth Hunk advert to whet the appetites (and wet the knickers) of its predominantly female-centric consumer base. The advert, by agency BETC London, plays with the established tradition of young and attractive ladies looking for a bit of eye (knicker) candy and the more-than-likely-blue-collar hunk revelling in the female gaze- and, I must say, it works. It works, and it always has. Check it out:


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HuHV4gwSXn4&list=UUZCOHRqaKeRVfKSwjEGAF5A&index=2

Why does it work? Aside from the obvious nostalgia from the previous adverts in 1994, 1997, and 2007, Diet Coke adverts have always left everybody happy. In an age where gender politics must be carefully navigated, Diet Coke has generally waded through like a cheeky club-footed elephant, winking and smiling as it goes. In this advert we see the active empowerment of women in their manipulation of the situation to their advantage; rolling the can to the mower so it fizzes up, man opens can, then ohmyGodithasonlybloodywellgonealloverhim! The man takes off the shirt, the ladies, delighted, gasp, having gotten exactly what they wanted. The man, although having a perfectly good shirt ruined [does he give a f**k!] is absolutely bloody loving the attention- because men are a bit like that (you could kick a man in the low-hanging fruit and he'd be fine with it as long as you said "My word, I almost broke my foot on that!"). Women are left feeling satisfied for seeing women ogle over men for a change; men don’t really care because they understand why women are ogling over him “I can’t blame them birds, that fella is f**king ripped!"; they don't even drink Diet Coke (don't believe the man in the advert- it's probably beer or Irn Bru in that can.)

Either a still from the new Diet Coke advert, or someone's about to p*ss through your letterbox.

So, good old Diet Coke: a great example of how a brand leader can assert its market dominance with an old favourite. Sometimes innovation isn't needed, sometimes it's best to just give the public what they want: ripped and sticky abs.

The Colgate Total Advert: The Tooth Behind the Lies!

If this post was a toothpaste advert it would be shaking so violently and uncontrollably that you wouldn't even be able to read it. 'Passers-by' with 2:2 degrees in Drama and Acting from backwater polytechnics would be saying: "Wow. This post is really good. It is just like a leading brand post. I now feel really good". Then a 'dentist' would show you a high-poly 3D graphic of what your face looks like when you read this post; you would 'gasp'- "I had no idea!" The dentist would then smile and touch your leg and probably the soft skin on your neck whilst he whispered made up scientific-sounding words into your ear.

This advert sums it up. It sums up all that is wrong with everything. Arguably, this advert is Broken Britain: Appallingly Dreadful Colgate Challenge Advert.

I have no idea why anyone would or could think that this way of producing an advert could be anything other than a cringe worthy adfail. If anything, these adverts have done more to damage my teeth by my symptomatic grinding whenever they're on. My immediate concern is a potential future Pavlovian effect whereby my teeth start grinding whenever I walk down the aisles and see a stack of toothpaste; the dentist's face appearing before my eyes in terrifying high-poly 3D flashbacks.

It's the arrogance of the advert and the utter contempt it must have for my intelligence to even try and suggest that I could believe the situation: A lone male accosts a young woman in a shopping centre and scans her mouth with a prop from Star Trek (complete with sci-fi sounds!) and shows her filthy, filthy mouth on screen. "But I only brushed this morning" she protests, "Not with Colgate Total toothpaste," he replies. By the look on his face and the tone of his voice, his internal response was: "Not with Colgate Total toothpaste, you complete and utter tool. You know what thing you've been doing twice a day for your entire life? Been doing it all wrong, haven't you? Sure, your teeth do look quite incredible- despite my Star Trek Oralscan 3000- but you may as well be brushing your teeth with dog s**t if you don't use Colgate Total." Then he says come back tomorrow! At this point I've lost all respect for this girl; as if she has literally nothing better to do? She probably didn't sleep that night- just sat on the edge of the bed, tensed and shivering, white-knuckled anticipation for 12 straight hours, choking on the filth encrusting her gnashers. When the time comes and the dentist scans her mouth: my word, look at that! That's science; that is science, right there!

"Swizzelstick? Of course not. I've never even heard of a Double Dip. This is an Oralscan 3000. By the way, you have very pretty eyes..."

Who is watching this advert and thinking "Well... All those other toothpaste adverts aren't testing their products on members of the public and this one actually is. The camera is shaking, so it's not in a studio; the man approached the woman directly in a shopping centre, so she can't be an actress; the man is wearing a suit, so he's definitely a Professional Expert of some sort. They've even scanned her mouth with what I can only assume is the Oralscan 3000, and that baby doesn't lie. I'd better go buy some Colgate Total right now before my oral cavity erupts with effluence like Mt. Crapatoa."?

In my opinion this exemplifies just the laziest kind of advertising: misleading, disingenuous, and shallow.

007 Advertising; not ageing well

007 sounds, in my opinion, quite irresponsible in handing out 'licenses' to 'any man' to 'kill women'; it honestly sounds like a gross misuse of power.

Although, I like the charming disclaimer: "When you use 007, be kind". When you kill a woman, please put a short, sharp bullet to the skull- a gentleman never lets a lady bleed out.

What is branding? You've got two minutes- start the clock!

A tidy little article by The Marketing Donut summarising branding:

http://www.marketingdonut.co.uk/marketing/marketing-strategy/branding

Essential reading; so open up your Pepsi can pencil case and get out that yellow highlighter that, at fourteen,  you were yet to realise could be made into fantastic facepaint for under UV lights in clubs at university.

These guys know!

Textbook agency w*nk

Found a cracking little website devoted to the kind of pap and tosh that brand agencies spout to differentiate themselves from the competitors: http://agencywank.tumblr.com/

Most of them are best read in the voice of Brian Griffin.

"Idea Department? Never heard of it. Around here, ideas are everywhere."

At which point Stewie would say "Brian? Brian? I'm going to go right ahead and this, okay, right off the bat... That trite quip you made- that hackneyed chestnut- made you sound like a giant douche."

Compare the Market's New Adverts

I like Robert Webb. He's not David Mitchell, which is an unfortunate shame, but then it's an unfortunate shame that more people aren't David Mitchell. Arguably, I'd be a lot happier if most people were David Mitchell, because I like him. But this isn't about David Mitchell, it's about Robert Webb (although one can't help but think of David Mitchell when discussing Robert Webb, even though it isn't the case vice versa), and the new Compare the Market adverts, which are interestingly deviating away from their hugely successful meerkat hijinks.

Compare the Market has had phenomenal success with their Compare the Meerkat adverts- a campaign which pushed the challenger brand from the 16th most visited insurance website in 2008 to the 4th most visited by the end of the year, and turned sucking your gums to make a squeak noise nearly entirely socially acceptable (nearly). By 2010 the site had increased their market share by 76% and Aleksandr Orlov, the meerkat brand ambassador, achieved celebrity status himself with 700,000 fans on Facebook and 22,000 followers on twitter. Indeed, Aleksandr's incredible popularity was such that his 'autobiography' sold more than Tony Blair's memoirs and his cuddly toy range was one of the most desirable toys of 2011. Tony Blair, of course, didn't release a cuddly toy of himself, although initial polls revealed a 'Care Blair' may have done quite well as a novelty item.

Don't even try and look at him without thinking of that 'squeak'...

What this all means is that the meerkat campaign- Compare the Meerkat- became almost inseparable from the Compare the Market name and brand. This was the springboard for the company to achieve and consolidate a considerable nationwide mindshare in insurance; such was the strength of the brand that even London Zoo found its meerkat adoption programme increase in popularity. It wouldn't be hard to argue that meerkats, for the UK consumer, have become almost inseparable from Aleksandr and the Compare the Meerkat adverts. Boom; a fantastic place to be for a challenger brand! So- why stop now with the new Robert Webb advert?

In my opinion this could be to do with the pet outgrowing the master: is Compare the Meerkat so big now that its relationship with Compare the Market has lost its synergy? Is Compare the Market benefitting anymore from the strength of Aleksandr's own brand? Bringing the brand back to Compare the Market's core business objectives and away from the Compare the Meerkat gimmick seems to be the focus of the current strategy- outlined by Webb in their first advert "They're different words. You see? They contain different letters, which are pronounced differently! Different words!" Having now consolidated their position as one of the big names, it's entirely fair to witness a gentle 'shrugging-off' of the former identity; importantly 'shrugging-off' as opposed to 'ditching' as Compare the Market is still largely supported by and associated with the meerkat brand- to sever all ties with the previous campaign too suddenly could well jeopardise the work done in propagating the mindshare. It's certainly not inappropriate to suggest that it's the meerkats that the consumer adore, not the company itself; is it therefore a case of weaning the consumer off their meerkat dependency?

Robert Webb [notably not David Mitchell] as Maurice Wigglethorpe-Throom

I for one welcome the new take on the format- restructuring Compare the Market's brand strategy into one more focused on the original brand is a sound long-term decision with short-term complications. I hope that Maurice Wigglethorpe-Throom's relationship with his dour butler Spencer will develop and grow and that Compare the Market's dependency on the meerkat gimmick will be gently decreased. Until they get David Mitchell, anyway.