Adwatch (Mar 21) top 20 recall: Cadbury Creme Egg

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I don’t ‘run myself ugly’ every morning (I figure I’m ugly enough already). The only mat I own isn’t for yoga, it’s for my mouse. And although I do technically belong to a gym, I must confess I don’t go nearly enough. When I say nearly enough of course I mean not at all.

So watching athletes at the peak of their fitness only usually succeeds in reminding me of the depth of my own. Aside from 9.69 seconds of my life in mid-August (I am partial to the 100 metres men’s final) I suspect I won’t be glued to the telly that much for those testosterone filled two weeks in the summer.  Chances are, I will avoid the madness and go on holiday like most sane Londoners.

I know it’s a big deal hosting the Games here. Those magnificent Leni Reifenstahl style Olympic rings floating above me at St Pancras remind me of this fact every time I pass gingerly underneath them. It’s just that I’m not ‘feeling’ it.

I blame the ads. There are just so many of them and most seem to make tenuous connections at best between the brand and the Games themselves. That’s the power of advertising. I am now starting to tenuously connect with the Games too.

The challenge is to create meaning and relevance in the way you connect those five rings to brands and peoples’ lives. Shamelessly plugging our own ads for Lloyds TSB I know, but the campaign we have created has community at its heart with the nomination of deserving torch-bearers. You get the relevance of the brand and its relationship with peoples’ lives in the lead up to the Games.  

As the official ‘treats provider’ of the London 2012 Games, I’m liking Cadbury for their positioning alone. It’s real and it’s plausible. Everyone needs a treat now and then. Especially the poor shmucks who run 26.2 miles straight without so much a cup of tea and a lie down.

The ‘Gooing For Gold’ campaign for Crème Eggs injects some much-needed humour after all those long, lingering close ups of Sir Chris Hoy’s shaved legs that I seem to see in every other ad right now. It’s also consistent with their previous ‘goo’ messaging and the irreverence is spot on.  

It might be too much for some, but personally I’m a big fan of the snuff movie genre, much under-utilised in advertising I might add. There are some particularly gruesome ends that await our gooey friends, particularly in track and field I found when I You Tube’d the other spots. ‘Javelin’ is a favourite of mine. Why the judge decides to impale himself at the end is beyond me, but I love that he does.

So ‘Velodrome’ gets a big tick from me. I think it’s great to see mindless violence associated with the Olympics. And I confess if it happened more often in the Games themselves, I for one wouldn’t miss a moment.

Imagine ‘Ladies Exploding Lawn Bowls’. Unmissable.

Verdict: 7/10.  

Clever evolution of an existing campaign. Nice Facebook extension too. Stands out from the earnest, try-hard Olympics ads out there by actually making you laugh.

This article was first published on marketingmagazine.co.uk