I always feel it's a bit unfair to publicly criticize advertising. Without having seen the brief it's tough to know what the objectives were, what the key insights were, what the research showed. Without knowing the client, it's impossible to know how many committees the creative got chewed through and how many managers had to leave indelible fingerprints on the work. That said, I love to criticize advertising. It's what I do and if I have to run someone through the ringer every so often I may as well do it with gleeful spite.
Canada Dry Ginger Ale has recently launched an aggressive brand campaign and it's been gnawing at me for a while. What I've seen so far has been TV ads and new packaging, though it could be in other media, just not the ones I use. The TV ads are totally unremarkable. In fact I'm having a hard time remembering what they were--and I can't find any on Youtube. I vaguely remember something about a shopping cart and, uh, ginger ale. The slogan is "made with real ginger." Heady stuff.
The packaging is where it starts to bother me. One look at the old and the new and it's not hard to imagine a shiny new CMO or brand manager looking to leave their mark on the product. The consumer research probably said things like "feels too stuffy" and "not fun enough". So it's likely they ambitiously set out to re-design the packaging to show how "fresh", "vibrant" and "fun" the product could be. You can imagine they got really hot about "breaking out of the category" and "moving the needle".
At least that's how I imagine it.
So the key insights behind this entire effort could have been that people would buy more ginger ale if they knew it was made with real ginger and if it looked fun. This probably came out of a focus group. I can imagine asking a focus groupee if she'd buy more ginger ale if she knew it was flavored with real ginger, not that fake ginger flavor that nobody's been talking about. In my mind she answers, "Shit. I'd run out and buy a case tomorrow if I knew that!"
Right.
What bothers me about this is not unremarkable advertising and ill-conceived design work. That shit is everywhere and I've learned to ignore it mostly. No, I'm bothered by the prestige of an old, storied brand, with years of equity built over the effort generations, stripped away in one fell swoop by a well-meaning but ham-fisted effort.
You could say I'm being sentimental, but sentimentality is a part of brand equity. Same goes for nostalgic.
Canada Dry has any number of stories it could tell, yet they chose to tell the 'made with real ginger' story.
It also had class. I remember "the champagne of ginger ales". I remember a classy green bottle, with a bold but elegant, worldly logo. It was the kind of thing that Hemmingway might splash into whatever he happened to be getting 'tight' on. It was a part of history and culture. It was the mix of choice for sophisticated partiers. Yes, it had brand equity. At least it did in 1934.
So, this campaign grates a little when I think of the possibilities. It reminds me how difficult it is to build brand equity and how easy it is to lose. And it reminds me how hard it is to stick to an idea, when everyone at the table has to leave their mark on it. I just hope whoever came up with this stuff doesn't get their hands on Mercedes-Benz ("runs on real gas!") or Rolex (research showed consumers would buy more if it ticked.).
Check out this link for a seriously ugly page, but a great resource for historic Canada Dry ads.
No comments:
Post a Comment