Pop cultural phenomena make for great conversation points, but when it comes to utilizing them in advertising, it’s a different matter altogether. If done right, the borrowed reference to some ironic figure or movie might just make your brand a little more relevant to a demographic for which popular culture has never been more important. However, it’s a sketchy area: you don’t want the borrowed image to upstage your product, or your creative, for that matter.
Says Chris Campbell, CD of Toronto-based Interbrand Tudhope: ‘It’s becoming an increasingly sophisticated audience. As a society, we’re more media-aware, which is why we’re seeing [pop culture referencing] more. We live in a cut-and-paste culture because of our ease of access to information in an increasingly digital world.’
Whether it’s a veiled comparison, à la the The Matrix/Alien-flavoured ad for Listerine Pocket Paks, or an all-out parody, such as Old Navy recreating the set of game show The Family Feud, with hyper-contestant Morgan Fairchild to hawk its fleece hoodies, there’s no doubt pop culture continues to spill into advertising.
Will Novosedlik, brand strategist for Taxi in Toronto, says that if done right, pop culture borrowing can be an effective marketing tool. Last year, Taxi came up with a spot for Reactine allergy medication that featured banjo music and a man running away from hillbillies that hearkened back to the unsettling 1970s film, Deliverance. ‘It wasn’t an attempt to recreate a scene from the movie,’ says Novosedlik. ‘If you can handle it deftly and it comes off, it works. If it’s just a dead-on scene from a movie, it’s brandless.’
Labatt brand Bud Light has been utilizing the character of Isaac the Bartender from the sudsy 1980s television comedy The Love Boat in its television advertising for a couple of years. Created by Toronto’s Downtown Partners, the spots show Isaac, played by actor Ted Lange, as an add-on at the end saying ‘This calls for a Bud Light!’
Paul Gillespie, senior marketing manager for Labatt’s Bud Light and Carlsberg brands, says the character works for the brand for a couple of reasons. ‘We wanted a bartender and Isaac could provide that context. On the funnier side, he’s also an irreverent character, keeping in tone with what we wanted to portray. And he’s a character that our target of 25- to 34-year-old males could relate to.’
Gillespie admits there are risks involved with tying a brand to something or someone in the culture at large. He notes that O.J. Simpson was used as an advertising spokesperson for Hertz rental cars in the U.S. prior to his infamous trial. ‘Whenever you choose to use a character that is in the popular domain, you’re tying yourself to past equities and to the future equities they may create. Who knows what they could do next week.’
But Gillespie says whether directly or indirectly related to the use of the character of Isaac, Downtown Partners’ advertising has contributed to significant growth for the Bud Light brand over the last couple of years. ‘He’s really created a call to action for the brand [with the line, ‘This calls for a Bud Light!’]. [The ads are] tied to Isaac as much as to the Bud light brand. They created a calling card to generate excitement at bars, in communities and at home.’
Some agencies, such as Vancouver’s Rethink, shy away from pop cultural references in their advertising. Chris Staples, a partner at Rethink, explains his views on the trend. ‘There’s a real specific term when we look at ads. If something borrows from another source, we call that ‘borrowed interest’,’ says Staples. ‘We frown upon it because it makes the client’s product the second banana. [And] we like to make our client’s product the star.’
Staples says when references to films or television or even songs are used over and over, consumers will likely remember the reference, rather than the brand that’s being advertised. ‘People will say, ‘hey did you see…,’ but they won’t remember what the product is for. It’s very dangerous and it doesn’t lead to great results.’
Staples says that to directly lift something from the film, The Matrix, for example, is an easy way out, and it may in turn have negative consequences for a brand. ‘It’s potentially confusing people and diluting the message. You’re not creating a distinct brand personality.’
On the notion of borrowing existing pop music hits in commercials, Iggy Pop’s Lust for Life has had an amazing shelf life. Originally a hit in the 1970s, the song was used in the cult film Trainspotting in 1996 and has also appeared in commercials for Royal Caribbean International cruises and Mitsubishi. Staples says it’s better to search for more obscure songs, and cites the recent ad for Mitsubishi that uses the song ‘Days Go By’ by Dirty Vegas, which has since put the band on the pop cultural map. ‘What you want is for it to be the other way around,’ says Staples. ‘You want pop culture to pick up on your advertising.’
Adds Judy John, of Toronto shop Leo Burnett: ‘Everyone borrows from everyone else. Movies borrow from commercials. Ten years ago, Nike did a commercial with Michael Jordan and Bugs Bunny that turned into Space Jam. We borrow from observations on life, from overheard conversations, we borrow from everywhere.’
John was creative director on the Vector Energy Bars spot that was influenced by the 1999 sci-fi film The Matrix and featured former Toronto Maple Leafs goalie Curtis Joseph, who was being sponsored by Vector at the time.
John says the commercial, which launched earlier this year, emphasized the hockey angle and focused more on the brand’s positioning: that Vector Energy Bars give you a competitive edge. She says references to the film were more for aesthetic purposes.
‘I don’t think it was that close [to the film]. It was dictated by hockey, and what Cujo could do,’ says John. ‘I loved the set and the symmetry of the look they had in The Matrix. Really, we looked at it for the tone and feel.’
John says the Vector spot was well received, though there are no plans to revisit the Matrix theme in future spots. ‘We got positive feedback and sales were up, so we’re happy,’ she says. John says that to stay fresh, it’s important to keep up with what’s going on in society at large – whether in art or in the news.
‘Because what we sell is perception and every advertiser wants the perception of innovation and understanding, of what the consumer needs and what people are going through with the times.’
Sometimes a unique product demands a unique marketing approach. Case in point: Listerine Pocket Paks. The paper-thin mint brand in the sleek snap-top case inspired a sci-fi movie-style launch strategy, says Graham Robertson, category manager for Listerine owner Pfizer. ‘Launching Pocket Paks, we thought it was a cool new product. It spun a lot of creativity because of how innovative it was.’
Toronto shop J. Walter Thompson created two spots in June 2000 for Listerine Pocket Paks, featuring a sci-fi female warrior battling the bad stuff à la films such as Alien and The Matrix. Originally shown in movie theatres, and later on television, the ads created such a buzz in the first two weeks they appeared, says Robertson, that there were 550 phone calls to a 1-800 number for the brand even before the product was available in stores. It became the number-one mint product eight weeks after the launch and Pocket Paks have stayed at that level ever since. ‘The imagery we were using probably would normally fit for a Sony or a Sega. To come from Listerine, it was a surprise.’
Robertson notes that the Matrix/Alien references in the ads had just the right amount of coolness, while still being accessible, to engage the consumer. Had the references been less cool sci-fi and more geek sci-fi, he says, they might not have been as effective and could potentially have alienated their audience. Says Robertson, ‘The subject we aligned with was pretty broad-oriented.’
Interbrand’s Campbell foresees that pop referencing may veer into more obscure territory as it moves forward into the areas of comic books, video games and even Web sites. He says that the digital landscape has created more opportunity for this, since marketers and creatives can more narrowly target their audiences by creating ‘second-level read’ references specifically tailored to them.
But Campbell says care and skill are required when mining the fields of pop culture so that one’s brand isn’t obscured in the process and that the mass audience isn’t lost. ‘It has to be able to communicate successfully. Even if you don’t understand the reference, it still has to work on a certain level,’ he says. ‘It seems to be a bit of a trend right now but it will eat itself. [And] as much as we like to reference, we also have an appetite for the new. It can’t go on forever.’
