Adwatch (9 Feb) - Top 20 recall: Innocent yet memorable?

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Once upon a time, in Hundred Acre Wood, lived Christopher Robin and his friends. They had great fun making drinks and smoothies from all the beautiful things nature provided there.

Eventually, these drinks, now in little bottles, made their way onto the shelves of retail stores. There was some advertising. There was some voting-by-bottle. There was some knitting of woolly hats and the haphazard activity of a small group of friends having fun.

Christopher Robin's drinks were so popular that the big makers of brown, sugared water swooped down and gave him enough money to buy a hundred hundred-acre woods. Now Not-so-Innocent had an army of pointy-headed MBAs looking at its business model, applying analysis and marketing disciplines in order to sell more of its stuff.

The pointy-heads said: 'Now is the time to target by occasion, by need-state, by getting into our consumers' lives and showing them when our good stuff is relevant.

'Oh, and we must not forget to remind people of all the fruity natural stuff in the bottle. And to suggest our smoothies are a food replacement, not a drink replacement.'

So, we arrive at this commercial. We see our superhero smoothie flying around, trying to rescue people from bad snack habits. We see people at weak moments, eating stuff they shouldn't - a fizzy drink and a big, evil, pastry pillow at a bus stop; the klutzy office snacker and his biscuits; the nice bloke on the train and his cardboard sandwich; and a young lady tempted by shiny cakes layered with sugary icing.

Each time our superhero appears, it is heralded by the hook from the Queen track, Flash - but changed to 'Fruit - ah - ah!' instead.

Aah, you say, far too much of a mirror on life to be interesting. Yet the ad works. Yes, it's tongue-in-cheek and over-the-top. Yes, it has hammy effects, with the strings and props showing. It is full of self-references throughout, such as when the newspaper billboard screams 'Unidentified Fruity Object'.

However, it's also funny. It makes people laugh and it has Brian Blessed doing the voiceover.

Most importantly for the brand, this is an ad that Coca-Cola simply would not make.

Only the Innocent can so clearly show intent and share the jokes. Only the Innocent can prove the devil doesn't have all the good tunes. And one day, Innocent will be Coke.

Adwatch (Feb 9) top 20 most recalled ads
Latest	Feb-02	Brand	Agency/TV Buyer	Recall
rank				%
1	(–)	Comparethemarket .com	VCCP/Zenith Optimedia	57
2	-19	Asda	Saatchi & Saatchi/ Carat	55
3	-1	DFS	Uber/Brilliant Media	52
4	(–)	Autoglass	Tellyville/Starcom	49
5=	(–)	Sky	WCRS/MediaCom	47
5=	(–)	More Th>n	SFW/MediaVest	47
5=	(–)	The Co-operative	TBWA\Manchester/ PHD Rocket	47
8	(–)	Moneysupermarket .com	Dare/MediaCom	46
9	(–)	Danone Activia	RKCR Y&R/MEC	45
10	(–)	Direct Line	M&C Saatchi/ MediaCom	44
11=	(–)	Kellogg's Special K	Leo Burnett/Carat	43
11=	(–)	The AA	McCann Erickson/ PHD	43
13	(–)	Innocent	swarm@RKCR/ Vizeum	42
14	(–)	Swiftcover	MWO/Arena Media	40
15	(–)	Sheilas' Wheels	In-house/Carat	38
16=	(5=)	Argos	CHI & Partners/ Mindshare	36
16=	(7=)	Tesco	The Red Brick Road/ Initiative	36
18=	(17=)	Morrisons	DLKW Lowe/MEC	35
18=	-3	Marks & Spencer	RKCR Y&R/Walker Media	35
18=	(–)	Walt Disney World Resorts	Euro RSCG Paris & London/Carat	35

Source: Adwatch research was conducted from 21-24 January 2011 by TNS as part of its twice-weekly OnLineBus omnibus among 1000 adults aged 16-64. For details of the survey,
contact sue.homeyard@tns-ri.co.uk (020 7160 5550). Advertisements were compiled by Xtreme Information (020 7575 1800) and Mediaedge:cia UK (020 7803 2000).

This article was first published on marketingmagazine.co.uk