Rita Ora, EE and the Advertising Memevolution
How EE captured the Internet’s attention
There have been a lot of memorable adverts this year, but it is heart-warming to see that as it draws to a close, EE have decided to round off 2020 with an advert that is more 2020 than 2020 itself.
And no, I don’t just mean for the COVID connotations, though they are numerous. The centrepiece of the advert is Rita Ora, a singer who, a mere two weeks after this advert debuted, was caught breaking lockdown restrictions by hosting a party for her 30th Birthday and inviting 30 guests.
She is introduced to us by EE stalwart Kevin Bacon, who looks like he has emerged from lockdown a different man, a grizzled veteran of the pandemic who has come out on top in his regular battles with the 40ft Rita Ora. Bacon’s task in this advert is to bring Anna, a member of the public, to the roof of her building, and provide her with a brand spanking new iPhone 12 Pro. This is perhaps meant to slightly distract from the fact that, in keeping with 2020 tradition, there are noticeably fewer participants in this advert than in those in the ‘before times’.
But why is this advert more 2020 than any other? It is because it is explicitly designed to be memed, from top to bottom, and shared as far as the eye can see — far beyond the original TV spots. This fits in with the general advertising trend currently, with various brands eager to capitalise on younger audiences to appear trendier. Think of Spotify’s well-received ‘Me, Also Me’ campaign.
We’re watching ‘traditional’ media less and less. 7.95m people watched the Voice UK Final in 2013, 6.87m in 2015, but last year viewership only reached 5.35m. In 2010, 17.7m people watched Matt Cardle win The X Factor Final, and yet only 5.8m watched in 2017. The need for ads to go viral is higher than ever.
Saachi and Saachi, the agency who produced this particular advert, know that, despite 14.3 million people watching an advert during I’m a Celebrity final, the real value is in having screengrabs of the ad shared thousands and thousands of times online, attracting a reach of further millions without needing to buy any more ad space.
And honestly, top to bottom, this advert is brilliant at doing that.
I don’t think I have ever rushed to tweet about an advert with the ferocity I did when I first saw this. It blew me away — why Is Rita Ora a Godzilla like figure, powered by 5G and yet looking graphically like she is from a 1999 PlayStation Game, stomping across the empty City of Lockdown London? And why does Kevin Bacon seem so indifferent to this development? And judging by a quick twitter search, I’m far from the only one.
Rita Ora herself is a highly interesting figure. Her career has had good longevity since her 2012 debut, RIP, with Tinie Tempah, and yet never received the huge accolades of some of her contemporaries. This is not to disparage Ora, but rather to highlight that her level of notoriety is what makes her a genius choice by EE for this advert. Choosing a British artist at the top of their game right now, such as Dua Lipa or Harry Styles, would not have worked because the potential ‘memeability’ would have been far lower. These are artists already trend on twitter with the regularity of Donald Trump — an EE advert featuring them would be lost in this sea of content. Similarly, you could not choose a breakthrough artist, such as BBC Sound of 2020 Celeste as they would be too unknown to either trend or for the concept to work.
The subtle differences between this advert, promoting the first 5G iPhone, and a 2013 effort that advertises the iPhone 5 back in the days of 4G, serve as a nice case study to look at a broader shift. Kevin Bacon has grown up, the skies look more ominous. Standing in front of the lonely backdrop of Canary Wharf, looking eerily reminiscent of the similarly located safe zone in 28 Weeks Later. His nonchalant attitude to the whole endeavour. The way Anna asks whether the figure on the phone is ‘RITA ORA?!’ with the enthusiasm that even a diehard Rita Ora fan would lack.
Every single moment is designed to be liked, screenshotted and shared into oblivion. Not a detail is missed, no opportunity spared. What this means is that people will then make their own memes — of the advert itself — that end up populating timelines and the trending topics of the day. The end result is that the advert becomes a piece of culture for the UK in November 2020, and your knowledge of it is the 2020 version of knowing the latest plot twist in a soap in the early 2000s.
As part of the advertising campaign, you can literally bring the advert — and therefore the meme — to life in the form of a VR Rita Ora, powered of course by 5G. Memes have brought a new dimension to advertising — without the meme, how many people would want to go the extra mile to engage with this stage of the process?
Well, when you can pretend your living room is 40ft Rita Ora’s playground, and then share the results with all of your friends on Instagram, TikTok and Twitter, why would you not? One thing is for sure — the memeification of advertising is simply too lucrative to not be here to stay.
