Nothing burns my professional pride more than seeing marketing dollars wasted. I try to cool down and let it slide, but there are a few recent examples of marketng “fat” that I can’t let go of.
Today’s target is the “endangered potato farmer”. A dispute between local growers and the potato marketing board (aka the guy who talks to the carrot) seems to have spawned a need for the potato farmers (the little guys) to talk to the public about their plight. Amazingly, they found an agency willing to take the PR job. No offense to my friends at Cocoon Branding but recommending an outdoor advertising campaign was sliding into shaky territory.
Huh?
It’s difficult to get the plight of the small potato farmer across in a split second so it was after many months of driving by the outdoor ads (that featured a panda bear carved out of a potato) before I figured out that it wasn’t a WWF ad for preservation of an endangered species. I saw a panda (not a potato) and the word ‘endangered’. For the rest, I had my eyes on the road.
I’m a pretty smart cookie and more attuned to advertising escapades and news media than most consumers, but this campaign was just a little too subtle for me to grasp. For example, the word ‘farmer’ doesn’t even appear on the billboard. So the uninformed consumer is only to believe that potatoes are endangered? Didn’t that happen in Ireland?
Did you miss it?
Be honest. Am I the only one who didn’t get it? Did you do a double-take back to the image above to get the point?
In short: the media selected – too simple. The creative – too complex. The client’s money – wasted.
It is with great joy that we offer this reference for BONE…
It gives me great pleasure to recommend BONE Creative to your…
I’m sure you aren’t aware of the big picture, or what the client paid for that matter, so here’s some of the background…
The project objective was to lobby against a new law that had been passed, which was going to hurt small local farmers, restauranteurs and grocers, by limiting the production and access to local potatoes.
The goal was to get the new law changed.
The client came to us with a modest budget and an initial request for a single full-page full-colour ad in the major newspaper. They did not realize the media space alone for that space exceeded their entire budget.
Instead (and within their budget), we created and maintained a blog, issued news releases, coordinated interviews with media which resulted in earned media through print and TV coverage, while the billboards and transit did increase awareness it also created political and public pressure to change the new law that just got passed endangering our local potatoes.
We wouldn’t have normally gone for selecting media that didn’t enhance the concept, but the budget was extremely limited, and due to timing and a bit of luck we got a great deal and immediate availability on the space. And to increase pressure through mass media presence suited the strategy.
The campaign achieved its goal in just 3 weeks, getting the law changed in favour of the local potato farmers.
In short: the client – extremely happy.
We are pretty proud of the creative and the result, and all the feedback we have received has been positive, until now.
Sincerely,
Your friends at Cocoon
Hey Kyle! Thanks for the background! Agreed that a happy client is mission accomplished. I was only giving the consumer’s view on the outdoor portion of the campaign. Glad the law got changed. And I actually believe the illustrations deserve an award for creativity. I’m just saying it took me months to connect the panda to the potato… and even longer to connect it to the potato farmer’s plight.
I concur with Joanne’s initial take on the outdoor ad campaign in terms of both the medium and the message, and, additionally, the absence of any call to action — like repeal the blah blah blah, vote no on xxx, contact your legislator, etc. instead of just listing a web address.. Maybe folks already familiar with the issue got the point, but I didn’t. The image looked like some sort of pitch to save the panda. Kinda bizarre really.
I too am glad your campaign succeeded and you nipped this injustice in bud. But I suspect it had more to do with you blogs, press releases and the like than the billboards.