The New Lil-lets Campaign

After encountering some varied opinions from colleagues and completely changing my own tune, I have finally settled on a point of view regarding the new Lil-lets campaign by MC Saatchi & Abel.

Someone argued that the ad doesn’t convey any functional product benefits (e.g. efficacy and quality) and hence, is essentially not doing much for the brand. I tend to disagree.

I admit that the campaign/ad is quite emotional and serious and says nothing of the product, but I think that is precisely what’s working for me. I reckon it is the details of sanitary products that embarrass people i.e. the functional benefits that are given horrible names/references like channels, leaks, leak-protection, WINGS (for crying out loud), barriers, walls, absorbent gel…all of which have quite vivid connotations or that conjure up very specific, unfeminine and often awkward imagery.

I think the category, through its communication and what have since become conventions, has created half the embarrassment that women experience when it comes to talking about/experiencing periods and I really don’t know if many chicks would choose to see all this stuff.

What has changed my mind about the Lil-lets campaign is the very fact that it says nothing about all those exaggerated or weird things: no demos, no flapping wings or contorting pads, no blue liquid, no reminders of all the things I really hate and that I am pretty certain other girls and women dislike too.

Essentially, this ad challenges the category slightly and gives a little more credit to what women know and feel i.e. implying a level of personal discernment when it comes to choosing and using (pretty intimate) products and knowing/feeling what is quality and what works.

This is my experience. NOBODY can help me when I’m on my period besides chocolate, I migraine tablet and isolation (read: a day off so I don’t have to talk to anyone), so a sanitary brand is unlikely to do much for me either. All it offers is a product I HAVE to use. No matter how comfortable you try and convince me your pad or tampon is I’d still prefer not to wear one. Full stop. But because that’s not realistic, all I want is a product that is the “healthiest”/best possible quality, the most efficacious, the least embarrassing…and if it proves not to work, I’ll ask what my friends are using and change very swiftly.

A brand needs to say very little to suggest that it is a quality and hence efficacious product – I will make my decision based on what you look like on that shelf or, depending on my age, I’d rely on my mother or friends for help. At the end of the day, the proof will be in my experience of a sanitary product, especially since I believe that every woman or girl has had an embarrassing moment, moments which are actually often not avoidable or solvable by the best product on the market.

Having said all this, the Lil-lets communication may be category challenging and worthy of praise for sparing us demos and unique descriptions, but executionally, it’s not new. One could change the voiceover of the ad and it could be for life insurance, a car, a bank, an education policy, a beauty product, tracker or the next instalment of the new KFC campaign…

And the brand is…?

I read about this brand advert yesterday and saw the ad for the first time last night.

24 hours ago I had absolutely no clue what Brother was. I read the press release about this ad and concluded that it must be some inspiration-inducing ad for another financial services company. It had that air of patient achievement- an arguably overplayed theme in financial services’ brand advertising.

The press release sounded like a Barry Ronge movie review, but it certainly got me interested and I was pleasantly surprised when the ad interrupted my religious Survivor viewing.

I paid particular attention to the art direction, epitomised by striking camera angles, dramatic contrasts and the filtered colours that alluded to a romanticised notion of freedom. Indeed, the wakeboarder also provided a seemingly flawless performance in a remote and surreal setting.

Investec? Alan Gray? A bank? Life insurance?

No, Brother Printers that apparently provide a “flawless first impression” just like the wakeboarder, I presume.

I am trying to establish what the thinking was regarding this piece of communication.

The only link I can possibly force myself to make between the product and the advert is that the wake-boarder’s moves were apparently flawless and I presume Brother wants to say that the result of their printers and copiers will be too. Or to quote a colleague, is it the “flawless way the paper enters and exits the Brother machine” (just like the wakeboarder carves the wake) and the perfect colour that defines every printed copy like the colour of the setting in which the wake-boarder finds himself?

How far is a brand willing to go to try and establish a link?

We need to review this in context. First, can a pro wake-boarder be considered analogous to a printer? Second, is there a real and believable connection between a pristine and noticeably secluded natural setting and a printer?

Advert: A talented man wakeboards effortlessly on pure glass- his movements and grace a tribute to himself for mastering nature and to nature for allowing him the playground to do so.

Product: A printer that is made in a factory (which pumps out environment-compromising greenhouse gases) and that gets used in offices with fluorescent lights, office chairs and neutral-toned walls, complimented by the constant drone of air conditioners.

Brand?
Assuming that the brand is the connection between the potential customer and the product, perhaps the brand appeals to an office-worker’s desire to live a natural and free life, devoid of the daily 9- 5 slog and the admin that accompanies it. Or, are all printer/copier customers and printing professionals moved by a poetic metaphor for perfection when all they likely want is a direct guarantee of colour superiority, functionality and convenience inside an office space?

The setting of the advert or “brand’s voice” is so far removed from the functionality and existence of a printer or copier, I truly battle to understand what the brand wants consumers to understand.

The only link that I am left with is perfection. This makes sense if I aspire to all things natural from my printing room or corner in my electrically-illuminated office or if I deem the niche sport or leisure activity of wakeboarding to be appealing to my experience or aspirations.

We’re back to that awkward analogy between nature and wakeboarding versus a printer.

However, it did say something about lasting impressions, in which case if I can’t be shown a realistic portrayal of lasting impressions created by a printer/copier in a printing-appropriate world, an advert of a tropical island or volcanic eruption, the birth of a baby, the sprint of a cheetah or looming tsunami could have sufficed.

Brand Score: 5 (but only because I love nature and love a glass-like body of water)
To access the press release (and a link to the ad): www.bizcommunity.com/Article/196/17/37614.html