Remember Billy Bee? Little guy. Black and yellow. Wings. Kinda cherubic. You know who we mean.
Billy has been keeping something of a low profile in recent years. But if you’ve been out and about in the major centres of Ontario or Atlantic Canada in recent months, you’ve almost certainly noticed that familiar, smiling face.
This past fall, in an effort to renew brand awareness, Billy Bee Honey Products of Toronto launched a high-profile outdoor campaign. And the star of the production? None other than that much-loved mascot, little Billy Bee himself.
The company, which is Canada’s largest private honey packer, has traditionally relied more on radio, print and point-of-purchase advertising. The fall campaign was Billy Bee’s largest in recent memory – and its first outdoor effort in at least 10 years.
‘We knew we didn’t want to rest on our laurels,’ says Elie Grossman, vice-president of operations with the 50-year-old, family-run organization. ‘With our character, we have a well-known salesman to strengthen our image and remind consumers of Billy Bee – through a highly visual medium.’
The campaign, which was created by Toronto’s Zeppelin Communications & Design, had two phases – the first focused on pure brand awareness, the second devoted to introducing Billy Bee’s new family of honey products.
Phase one rolled out in October, and ran on billboards for eight weeks. The clean, simple creative execution featured the brand icon and a headline intended to promote Billy Bee honey as a healthier substitute for sugar: ‘Bee Healthy – Billy Bee, the natural sweetener.’
Phase two, which added bus panels to the mix, promoted the new Billy Bee products – among them honey mustard, honey barbecue sauce, honey-roasted peanuts and honey lemon candies – with such headlines as ‘Bee Nutty’ and ‘Bee Saucy.’
‘We had to keep it simple,’ says Christine Fox, director of promotions with Zeppelin. ‘With billboards, you only have a few seconds for people to see it, so we used brilliant background colours to grab attention, and the bee to provide instant [brand] recognition.’
The campaign employed billboards positioned in the vicinity of grocery stores in order to catch the eye of the target audience – namely, women 18-plus with children, and other health-minded adults.
Although packaged goods companies are not generally the leading users of outdoor, Fox says advertisers in these categories can make highly effective use of the medium.
‘You can put stuff on shelves or use displays at retail [to encourage an instant purchase],’ she says, ‘But that’s not necessarily what we were doing in this campaign. It was more of a message to remind people about Billy Bee – that it is natural, and that there is this family of products. And the best way to do that was the way we took.’
Also in this report:
– Let the good times roll: Demand is up, credibility is no longer an issue and turnaround is faster than ever. So why doesn’t outdoor garner a greater share of the advertising pie? p.21
– Video Board a standout: Largest of its kind in Canada, board will showcase DaimlerChrysler, TV spots for next five years p.25
