A potential prisoner gets tormented by the onion- and coffee-soaked breath of his ’70s-style interrogator in a new spot for Clorets. The ad, by Toronto-based Bates Canada, is part of a new TV and in-store campaign that positions the breath-freshening gum as a bad-breath eliminator as opposed to just a breath freshener, says Rick Davis, national CD for Bates. Davis says this strategy – part of the heritage of the Clorets brand – hasn’t been used for several years, but has been resurrected to differentiate Clorets from the vast number of new gums on the market.
‘The key goal is to show Clorets eliminates bad breath, it doesn’t [just] mask it,’ says Davis. ‘Clorets is less cosmetic, unlike other gums. It’s not the getting-ready-for-the-date gum.’
A previous spot by Bates for Clorets from a couple of years ago, entitled ‘Talking Dirty,’ positioned the gum as a breath cleaner but Davis says that this positioning didn’t resonate with the target audience of older males.
The current TV commercial, entitled ‘Interrogation,’ features a couple of streetwise Starsky & Hutch-esque cops who use their bad breath as a method of getting a would-be con to ‘fess up to his crime. Davis says that to avoid stigmatizing the Clorets user, the spot relies on humour.
‘By making a [1970s] period piece, we don’t stigmatize our customer,’ says Davis. ‘But ironically, we [also] contemporized the brand by doing this.’
As for extending the campaign, which launched mid-May, to other creative executions, Davis says nothing has been decided, but that ‘there’s a real campaignable idea here.’
To check out ‘Interrogation’, go to the Strategy Screening Room
http://www.strategymag.com/screeningroom/20030529/interrogation.html
Client: Clorets (Adams)
Agency: Bates
Creative Director: Rick Davis
Art Director: Kerry Reynolds
Copywriter: Mark Fitzgerald
Direction: Martin Granger, Avion Films
Post: Panic & Bob
Music: Silent Joe
