Heads Up: Should I give my enemy airtime?
Known for their huge marketing spend and large experienced teams, big brands like Pepsi can afford to take some creative risks, especially if it gets them ‘one up’ on their life-long competitor.
Before I dive into this weeks brief, just wanted to thank everyone who has taken the time to message or talk to me about the digest. Thrilled that you are enjoying reading it as much as I enjoy creating it.
The Brief: It’s 2001 and Pepsi wants to make a creative ad for their product. It’s unknown at this point if their brief was actually to belittle Coca Cola but you can imagine that this is always somehow inherent in their creative briefs…
The Campaign: >> Video of the ad here <<
A child heads to a vending machine and it seems on the face of it, pretty simple. They are attempting to buy a Coca Cola. He places it on the floor and then buys another. Pretty unremarkable so far. But as it turns out, he is buying an extra five inches to his height, using the Coca Cola cans to stand on so that he can reach the Pepsi button which is higher up. He selects Pepsi, takes the can and walks away, rejecting the two Coca Cola cans.
It’s smart, funny and not immediately obvious. The reward when we reach the end of the 30 second clip is priceless. You feel instantly compelled to be teamPepsi.
It seems surprising to decide that the first thing your audience sees is your competitors’ product. All instincts would tell us that this is counterproductive - giving airtime to your enemy - can you imagine?
But it works because they are honest with us. They don’t seek to deny the existence of their competitor, they are simply showing us that some people prefer Pepsi over Coca Cola and will go to great lengths to get it, even if Coca Cola is an easier option e.g. a more easy to reach button on a vending machine
They identify themselves as another popular option to the norm and use this idea to elevate their own argument. I think we can do the same. Let’s not deny the existence of meat eaters but show that some people prefer the alternative - it’s social proof at its finest.
Why does it stand out?
➡ ️ The kid is confidently on a mission to get what he wants and we are simply observers
➡ ️The idea he has (rather than bringing a step) has a smart naivety to it
➡ ️It’s memorable
➡ The music is uplifting
➡ It’s centred around an excellent concept
Interesting to note here that you don’t feel duped. You don’t feel tricked in a negative sense of being misled and I think there is probably a fine line here between using the brand to fool the viewer, and using the brand to get one up.
Heads Up Challenge: Think acknowledging your competitors existence
(Copy the below into a working document that you can use for the challenge each week)
Identify a brief for your own work.
Write down three ways in which you could show people actively choosing the alternative despite the existence of your competitor
The Brief:
Idea 1:
Idea 2:
Idea 3:
Set aside a weekly 15 minute slot to complete these weekly creative tasks and why not schedule a call with others on your team to talk through your thoughts on this topic and share ideas for you to try out?
Heads Up is a weekly creative digest that encourages animal advocates to take inspiration from case studies of creative campaign tactics outside of our movement.
> ~ 5 minutes read-time (but hopefully gets you thinking for longer than that)
> Demonstrates interesting tactics and use of biases that you can test
> Contains a creative challenge for you to explore independently or with your team with results that you can apply for your important campaigning work
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