What We Can Learn from the Whackiest Ad of 2017.
Sometime in early 2018, I took it upon myself to painstakingly download each film that won a Lion at Cannes. After nearly 4 days of staying late at the office, I finally had a set of nearly two hundred ad films, activation ideas, and digital films that I was was going to rip apart and analyze. Honestly, I was overwhelmed. Not just because I wanted to examine every film and build an arsenal of insights, plot points, and characterizations, but because even though going through these films could very possibly help me do my job better, I still had deadlines to catch.
So, I resolved to come earlier to work every day and check out some films for ‘inspiration’. Looking back now, this exercise definitely helped me think quicker and maybe even write better, but honestly, it did feel indulgent at one point.
You see, somewhere along the way I stopped making mental notes and just started enjoying the work. This happened when I came across the ‘Long Long Man’ campaign for Sakeru Gummy, a Japanese chewing gum brand.
What was the brief?
Before we get into the actual campaign, let’s zoom back a little and explore what the brief was. As per this interview of Mitsuaki Imura, the creative director behind this campaign, the brief for the campaign was simple. Sakeru Gummy would come in a newer, longer variant and the agency had to create a campaign that highlighted the newer product while not cannibalizing the sales of the smaller variant. It’s hard enough to launch a separate product but in this case, the agency had the unwelcome task of also making sure that the other product wouldn’t be ignored by consumers.
“That was the start of my headaches”, says Mitsauki. In fact, the first campaign that was presented was rejected by the client. Mitsauki goes on, “After various twists and turns, I finally hit on the idea of trying something with all explanations removed. I thought why not do a story pitting Sakeru Gummy and Long Sakeru Gummy against each other. This was the big turning point.”
Indeed it was. Because what better way is there to ensure brand recall of both the longer and shorter variants, than by creating a campaign that had equal screen time for both products?
It ticked all the boxes.
The reason why I stopped taking notes and just enjoyed the ad back in 2019 was simple. You see, in a time when all the clients I was working with were all about playing it safe by making ‘fool-proof’ ads that couldn’t possibly be miscomprehended, here was a campaign that threw all the rules out the window but had seemingly built a platform just outside the window to collect all the rules that they tossed out. The Sakeru Gummy campaign proved to creatives and clients, once and for all, that you could write an ad which had the product at the center of the story, but still be fearless in execution.
Its overtly sexual undertones, the 11-ad campaign format, the bizarre twists and turns, the zany characters and the sheer absurdity of the whole thing meant that it broke nearly every unwritten rule of advertising. Truthfully, if it were me presenting those scripts, I’d have soiled myself before the meeting. But the fact is, that the campaign ticked every box that the client could’ve put in front of the agency.
It was easy to comprehend, memorable, and most importantly, the product was at the heart of the story.
It must’ve taken big cajones to make it happen.
We spoke earlier about how the client had rejected the initial campaign pitched to them. Mitsuaki Imura had this to say about the pitch for this campaign: “We already had several discussions with the client about ‘making it feel major’ and had made a couple of pitches, so we had built a relationship where they could tell us straight, ‘We don’t think the proposal you brought the other day is what we’re after. The client’s president attended each of our presentations, and at about the fourth one, basically gave the green light to our final proposal on the spot, saying, ‘Let’s keep it this simple!’”
Imagine that. The client rejected the campaign put in front of them 3 times, and at the agency still had the courage to come back to the fourth meeting with something as whacky as the campaign we all know and love. Having read the interview linked earlier, a couple of things about the pitching process behind this ad stood out to me:
- The agency got negative feedback and went back to the client with an even more bizarre idea.
- The client saw the even more bizarre idea and greenlit it because it did in fact meet all their criteria.
Clearly, it took major courage to create an ad such as this, not just on the agency’s part, but also on the client’s. I imagine being on the receiving end of a pitch such as this would leave me thinking that the campaign could either make me look like a fool or a genius, with the likelihood of the two possibilities being exactly the same.
Mitsuaki said, explaining the dichotomy of writing an extremely strategic yet bizarre idea, “It was a brilliant proposal, even if I say so myself. The two products appear continuously throughout and the actors are eating the product from start to finish. The commercial compares little Gummy and Long Gummy, and though there are no explanations, it actually only talks about the product.”
The format
In a sea of montages, familiar gimmicks, and digital films that were indulgently drawn out to meet the 2:30 mark, Sakeru Gummy went back to basics: likable characters, effective dialogue, clear body language, and a 0:30 spot. Except they made 5 of those, and when the campaign made a buzz and sales went up, they made 6 more.
More than most campaigns, the Sakeru Gummy films drive home the point that in the digital age, the lifeblood of good marketing is short, combustible films. Sure, you can make longer digital films to convey brand philosophy, but when it comes to writing ads that do more selling than preaching, its clear that 30s spots are the way to go. Any shorter, and you won’t really be remembered, and any longer and it’s harder to write interesting copy, strictly on the USPs of a product. A 30s spot is the goldilocks zone of having good ad recall as well as brand love.
Here’s a detailed study that corroborates that point.
The Execution
This film sums up what is perhaps the hardest about being a copywriter: writing a hilarious, off-the-wall story while being absolutely serious in the process. My respect for my former boss would grow each time we’d have to work on a weekend to create a script that makes people laugh while being fully aware of the pressure we were under. Bear in mind, Mitsuaki had to deal with the client rejecting the first few sets of creatives and come up with the Long Long Man despite being under that pressure.
Everything from the Long Long Man’s mustache, to the daft innocence of Chi-chan’s boyfriend to the longing look in Chi-chan’s face at the sight of Long Long Man, goes a long way towards selling the idea that is pivotal to making this story stand upright. And that is the notion that Chi-chan finds comfort in…erm, long things. Further, the way in which the story progressed with the use of repetition in story structure and music made the ad super-memorable.
But most importantly, leveraging Chi-chan’s guilt to drive home the point that both the variants of Sakeru Gummy are the same in reality was an absolute masterstroke, both from a creative and a business perspective.
The Sakeru Gummy campaign could easily be brushed aside by some as ‘yet another’ whacky ad from the Pacific Rim. However, at the tail end of an era in advertising where the knack of writing for older formats met the newer, shorter attention spans of the internet, we seemed to be seeing a drastic rise in digital ads that ran longer than they should have and preached more than they sold.
The Sakeru Gummy campaign confirmed to everyone that the succinct and punchy nature of writing thirty-second TV ads actually paired seamlessly with the bizarre, meme-friendly nature of digital ads.
