Animal seducer
Campaigns They are always popular and only celebrities and babies can beat them in terms of attention - animals in advertising. Now Sibir, Ragusa and "Austria" are also relying on paws, paws and co.
Campaigns They are always popular and only celebrities and babies can beat them in terms of attention - animals in advertising. Now, Sibir, Ragusa and "Austria" are also relying on paws, paws and co.For breakfast, you might bite into a piece of cow that laughs. If you haven't gotten out of the habit yet, you can set fire to a camel. And, as a precaution, extinguishes it again before filling the tank with the tiger: In this way, a whole zoo can easily be put together from the modern brand world. Most frequently represented in advertising are highly anthropomorphized animal figures equipped with various stimuli. But natural animals also practically always succeed in attracting the viewer's attention and influencing them on an emotional level with their facial expressions and character.A trick with pitfalls
If the creative team succeeds in combining these advantages with the advertised product in an entertaining way in the campaign idea, the animal figurehead and the brand are sure to win the goodwill of the viewers. "The advantage of animals in advertising is their jolly nature," knows Hansjörg Zürcher, the spiritual father of Lovely the dairy cow. The fact that animals can't pretend often makes viewers forget that it's actually advertising. Zürcher is convinced that this is why commercials with animals are always popular.
In particularly attention-grabbing cases, the editorial columns of the media also open up. A few years ago, for example, the trusty Migros dog Max was the only family member of the advertising sitcom to make it onto the front page of Schweizer Illustrierte. And in Aeschbacher's entertainment show "Casa Nostra," the four-legged friend took a seat in the armchair as an interview partner.
But where such strong emotions are triggered, caution is also advisable. Hansjörg Zürcher points out that animals and their portrayal in advertising must be handled very carefully today. One quickly gets into trouble with overzealous animal rights activists. By no means are all the popular slapsticks from the world of animal cartoons accepted in advertising. Striking at any price is often rejected by broad segments in connection with animals. How little it takes to hurt the feelings of sensitive animal lovers is shown by the example of a chewing gum campaign last year that used grinning animal mouths to implement the USP in a way that is unusual in the industry. While one advertising consumer voted it the second most popular campaign of 2003 (WW 2/04), on the other hand, according to the agency, quite a few complained about so much perfidy. The star creative Markus Ruf has dared a few things and won. At the end of the nineties, he divided the country with a motif of a dead budgie advertising long vacations with SSR. And with burping ibexes and peeing marmots, he drew the attention of the young target audience to Calanda Viva.
But Ruf also knows the weaknesses of animals in advertising. "There's a lot to be said against using animals just to create a yay effect. Because that's ultimately how distinctiveness goes to the dogs," he says. Not infrequently, he says, there are advertisers who take the path of least resistance. After all, "If you advertise with an animal from the petting zoo department, you have a good chance of pleasing not only the advertising manager, but also his wife," Ruf scoffs.
Super Bowl with many animal spots
It is true that the less cuddly animals, such as the Swiss pick-me-up Lovely or her German purple cow(h)sine, stand out very well from the advertising monotony and make "their" brand unmistakable. But the "photo-realistic" celebrities - even if computer-animated - often have production and cost-related disadvantages. To make matters worse, animals can be assigned different meanings from one cultural group to another (sacred cow, unclean pig).
The art now lies in finding the right balance. If an animal advertises an obvious product too flatly, the surprise effect is lost. If the animal in the advertisement lacks credibility, the viewer quickly feels led by the nose. The use of an animal in an all too unfamiliar environment also often causes subliminal confusion among the target audience or prevents identification. This was the fate of Coca-Cola's cuddly polar bear family and Clive, the dryly sarcastic jaguar from Schweppes.
Anyone who thinks that animals and beverages don't go together anyway will be proven wrong after this year's Super Bowl on U.S. television. For "Advertising Christmas" 2004, the legendary "Whazzup" brand Budweiser turned its attention to the values of the animal kingdom and presented a full-blown "Animal Farm" commercial. The beer wasn't alone in its animalistic take: For the superlative spot spectacle, the US car brand Dodge came up with the monkey, Honda with the wolves, and Pepsi - with grizzly bears going shopping for Pepsi.
None as durable as the tiger
Domestic animal stars, on the other hand, were in retreat until recently: apart from the Cardinal owls, the Bank Leu lions and the red-spotted Avia animals, new animal calls - mostly as extras - were only occasionally heard in the Swiss advertising circus.
Just like Max the Migros dog years ago, Fredy the mouse, who was the Emmentaler's champion, had to resign in 2003. Cases like the one in England, where huge protests arose because a tea brand wanted to abruptly dismiss its tea-party-celebrating chimpanzee family after years of use, are not on record in Switzerland.
It is equally rare for an animal to last as long as Esso's heraldic animal, the tiger. It made its debut in Esso advertising in England in the mid-thirties of the last century and has been refreshed as a component of the brand ever since. According to Bertrand Cornaz, Esso media spokesman, the tiger is currently not jumping into the tank as often as it used to in German-speaking countries. On the other hand, he is still a popular figure at gas stations. In addition to the Esso world of values, the majestic animal has also left its mark on the oil company's sponsorship: in 1995, ExxonMobil joined forces with the British National Fish and Wildlife Foundation to set up the "Save the Tigers Fund" to save the tiger from extinction.
Austria comes to the penguin
Back to the "new" animals that populate advertising in Switzerland. Lowe GGK, Vienna, was allowed to realize a unique and distinctive advertising idea in the tourism industry for Österreich Werbung (ÖW). Instead of continuing to focus on mountains, cities and lakes, or even celebrities, the recently launched campaign portrays the longing for vacations in Austria through a story. "A story that is poetically charged with the brand's values," explains advertising manager Susanne Winter. This story-telling principle is symbolized by Joe and Sally - the two penguins that Lower Austrian author and art photographer Willy Puchner first sent on a world tour in 1992 in the volume "The Longing of the Penguins." Penguins stand for curiosity, fascination and wanderlust. So it was only natural to use Austria as a stage for their unmistakable charm. Arthur Oberascher, head of ÖW, hopes to activate potential customers via the detour of impact and differentiation. "To prevail in the infotainment age, advertising should be entertaining. That's why the endearing metaphor of the two penguins contains a carefully applied dash of self-irony." As the first testimonials at ÖW, Joe and Sally are doing a great job: The two heroes are helping to position Austria as the "most charming vacation destination in the world" in an endearing way and without words, Oberascher sums up.
Position Ragusa more concisely
The heroes of the new Ragusa billboard - squirrels, bees and St. Bernards - jump into a similar concept niche. "At a time when it's not just chocolate advertising that communicates with high lifestyle appeal and strong target-group representation, we wanted to break out of the standard repertoire of ideas," says Hans Tanner, CD at cR DDB, Basel. The creative, who has co-developed advertising animal classics for Zurich Insurance and Key Club, presented the characteristics of the famous chocolate speciality - from the exquisite raw materials to the energy donor - with plausible animal analogies. In an environment of competitors with greater advertising pressure, the Camille Bloch brand wanted to position itself more succinctly with the animals than the competition, says Tanner, explaining the advertising idea.
At the household technology brand Sibir, a different problem tipped the scales in favor of introducing a polar bear as an emotional key visual. Despite an expanded range, Sibir was still perceived by most segments only as a refrigerator manufacturer. Among other things, this had to do with the fact that more and more kitchens are being planned and delivered en bloc, says Oskar Gasser of the Zogg Kettiger Gasser (ZKG) agency. Since the stove and oven play the central role in kitchen construction, it is virtually assembled around these two appliances. "Consequently, the consumer is primarily looking for brands that are top of mind in this group," says Gasser.
In this case, too, an attention-grabbing advertising concept had to outweigh the small budget compared to the competition. This would hardly have succeeded with the demonstration of the products. Since Sibir had worked with the polar bear before, it was decided to give it a new lease of life in a more vital and humorous form - with eye-catching Blues Brothers glasses. The goal is to have consumers respond to the brand who are closer to "human warmth" than the latest technical or aesthetic gimmicks. This would position Sibir in a psychological field not occupied by any competitor. "We had to weigh the risk of the polar bear cementing the association with the refrigerator brand against the benefit of the polar bear rapidly increasing the recall value to Sibir," Gasser looks back. "We judged the latter to be the more important effect." On a basis of awareness and sympathy, other messages such as that of the overall range could be conveyed more easily, ZKG believes.
After an initial phase in which Sibir's strong service organization will be more closely aligned with its own and no longer assigned to all brands, the polar bear will also be animated for TV commercials. The centerpiece is a pure image subject - the bear in the Corbusier lounger. It is intended to symbolize the overall solution with all equipment categories as well as the conveniently complete service.
Sibir's polar bear has been around before. Zogg Kettiger Gasser made him Disney-like.
Animal celebrities: Lovely dairy cow, Milka cow, Migros dog Max.
Lowe GGK, Vienna, sends the penguin couple Joe and Sally on vacation - to Austria, of course.
cR DDB makes Ragusa a savior: A Branchli against hunger pangs.
Zogg Kettiger Gasser has brought the Siberian polar bear out of hiding.
Mercedes-Benz fulfills hunter's dreams.
Post, Bank Leu: animals as actors or as pure image icons.
Luca Aloisi
If the creative team succeeds in combining these advantages with the advertised product in an entertaining way in the campaign idea, the animal figurehead and the brand are sure to win the goodwill of the viewers. "The advantage of animals in advertising is their jolly nature," knows Hansjörg Zürcher, the spiritual father of Lovely the dairy cow. The fact that animals can't pretend often makes viewers forget that it's actually advertising. Zürcher is convinced that this is why commercials with animals are always popular.
In particularly attention-grabbing cases, the editorial columns of the media also open up. A few years ago, for example, the trusty Migros dog Max was the only family member of the advertising sitcom to make it onto the front page of Schweizer Illustrierte. And in Aeschbacher's entertainment show "Casa Nostra," the four-legged friend took a seat in the armchair as an interview partner.
But where such strong emotions are triggered, caution is also advisable. Hansjörg Zürcher points out that animals and their portrayal in advertising must be handled very carefully today. One quickly gets into trouble with overzealous animal rights activists. By no means are all the popular slapsticks from the world of animal cartoons accepted in advertising. Striking at any price is often rejected by broad segments in connection with animals. How little it takes to hurt the feelings of sensitive animal lovers is shown by the example of a chewing gum campaign last year that used grinning animal mouths to implement the USP in a way that is unusual in the industry. While one advertising consumer voted it the second most popular campaign of 2003 (WW 2/04), on the other hand, according to the agency, quite a few complained about so much perfidy. The star creative Markus Ruf has dared a few things and won. At the end of the nineties, he divided the country with a motif of a dead budgie advertising long vacations with SSR. And with burping ibexes and peeing marmots, he drew the attention of the young target audience to Calanda Viva.
But Ruf also knows the weaknesses of animals in advertising. "There's a lot to be said against using animals just to create a yay effect. Because that's ultimately how distinctiveness goes to the dogs," he says. Not infrequently, he says, there are advertisers who take the path of least resistance. After all, "If you advertise with an animal from the petting zoo department, you have a good chance of pleasing not only the advertising manager, but also his wife," Ruf scoffs.
Super Bowl with many animal spots
It is true that the less cuddly animals, such as the Swiss pick-me-up Lovely or her German purple cow(h)sine, stand out very well from the advertising monotony and make "their" brand unmistakable. But the "photo-realistic" celebrities - even if computer-animated - often have production and cost-related disadvantages. To make matters worse, animals can be assigned different meanings from one cultural group to another (sacred cow, unclean pig).
The art now lies in finding the right balance. If an animal advertises an obvious product too flatly, the surprise effect is lost. If the animal in the advertisement lacks credibility, the viewer quickly feels led by the nose. The use of an animal in an all too unfamiliar environment also often causes subliminal confusion among the target audience or prevents identification. This was the fate of Coca-Cola's cuddly polar bear family and Clive, the dryly sarcastic jaguar from Schweppes.
Anyone who thinks that animals and beverages don't go together anyway will be proven wrong after this year's Super Bowl on U.S. television. For "Advertising Christmas" 2004, the legendary "Whazzup" brand Budweiser turned its attention to the values of the animal kingdom and presented a full-blown "Animal Farm" commercial. The beer wasn't alone in its animalistic take: For the superlative spot spectacle, the US car brand Dodge came up with the monkey, Honda with the wolves, and Pepsi - with grizzly bears going shopping for Pepsi.
None as durable as the tiger
Domestic animal stars, on the other hand, were in retreat until recently: apart from the Cardinal owls, the Bank Leu lions and the red-spotted Avia animals, new animal calls - mostly as extras - were only occasionally heard in the Swiss advertising circus.
Just like Max the Migros dog years ago, Fredy the mouse, who was the Emmentaler's champion, had to resign in 2003. Cases like the one in England, where huge protests arose because a tea brand wanted to abruptly dismiss its tea-party-celebrating chimpanzee family after years of use, are not on record in Switzerland.
It is equally rare for an animal to last as long as Esso's heraldic animal, the tiger. It made its debut in Esso advertising in England in the mid-thirties of the last century and has been refreshed as a component of the brand ever since. According to Bertrand Cornaz, Esso media spokesman, the tiger is currently not jumping into the tank as often as it used to in German-speaking countries. On the other hand, he is still a popular figure at gas stations. In addition to the Esso world of values, the majestic animal has also left its mark on the oil company's sponsorship: in 1995, ExxonMobil joined forces with the British National Fish and Wildlife Foundation to set up the "Save the Tigers Fund" to save the tiger from extinction.
Austria comes to the penguin
Back to the "new" animals that populate advertising in Switzerland. Lowe GGK, Vienna, was allowed to realize a unique and distinctive advertising idea in the tourism industry for Österreich Werbung (ÖW). Instead of continuing to focus on mountains, cities and lakes, or even celebrities, the recently launched campaign portrays the longing for vacations in Austria through a story. "A story that is poetically charged with the brand's values," explains advertising manager Susanne Winter. This story-telling principle is symbolized by Joe and Sally - the two penguins that Lower Austrian author and art photographer Willy Puchner first sent on a world tour in 1992 in the volume "The Longing of the Penguins." Penguins stand for curiosity, fascination and wanderlust. So it was only natural to use Austria as a stage for their unmistakable charm. Arthur Oberascher, head of ÖW, hopes to activate potential customers via the detour of impact and differentiation. "To prevail in the infotainment age, advertising should be entertaining. That's why the endearing metaphor of the two penguins contains a carefully applied dash of self-irony." As the first testimonials at ÖW, Joe and Sally are doing a great job: The two heroes are helping to position Austria as the "most charming vacation destination in the world" in an endearing way and without words, Oberascher sums up.
Position Ragusa more concisely
The heroes of the new Ragusa billboard - squirrels, bees and St. Bernards - jump into a similar concept niche. "At a time when it's not just chocolate advertising that communicates with high lifestyle appeal and strong target-group representation, we wanted to break out of the standard repertoire of ideas," says Hans Tanner, CD at cR DDB, Basel. The creative, who has co-developed advertising animal classics for Zurich Insurance and Key Club, presented the characteristics of the famous chocolate speciality - from the exquisite raw materials to the energy donor - with plausible animal analogies. In an environment of competitors with greater advertising pressure, the Camille Bloch brand wanted to position itself more succinctly with the animals than the competition, says Tanner, explaining the advertising idea.
At the household technology brand Sibir, a different problem tipped the scales in favor of introducing a polar bear as an emotional key visual. Despite an expanded range, Sibir was still perceived by most segments only as a refrigerator manufacturer. Among other things, this had to do with the fact that more and more kitchens are being planned and delivered en bloc, says Oskar Gasser of the Zogg Kettiger Gasser (ZKG) agency. Since the stove and oven play the central role in kitchen construction, it is virtually assembled around these two appliances. "Consequently, the consumer is primarily looking for brands that are top of mind in this group," says Gasser.
In this case, too, an attention-grabbing advertising concept had to outweigh the small budget compared to the competition. This would hardly have succeeded with the demonstration of the products. Since Sibir had worked with the polar bear before, it was decided to give it a new lease of life in a more vital and humorous form - with eye-catching Blues Brothers glasses. The goal is to have consumers respond to the brand who are closer to "human warmth" than the latest technical or aesthetic gimmicks. This would position Sibir in a psychological field not occupied by any competitor. "We had to weigh the risk of the polar bear cementing the association with the refrigerator brand against the benefit of the polar bear rapidly increasing the recall value to Sibir," Gasser looks back. "We judged the latter to be the more important effect." On a basis of awareness and sympathy, other messages such as that of the overall range could be conveyed more easily, ZKG believes.
After an initial phase in which Sibir's strong service organization will be more closely aligned with its own and no longer assigned to all brands, the polar bear will also be animated for TV commercials. The centerpiece is a pure image subject - the bear in the Corbusier lounger. It is intended to symbolize the overall solution with all equipment categories as well as the conveniently complete service.
Sibir's polar bear has been around before. Zogg Kettiger Gasser made him Disney-like.
Animal celebrities: Lovely dairy cow, Milka cow, Migros dog Max.
Lowe GGK, Vienna, sends the penguin couple Joe and Sally on vacation - to Austria, of course.
cR DDB makes Ragusa a savior: A Branchli against hunger pangs.
Zogg Kettiger Gasser has brought the Siberian polar bear out of hiding.
Mercedes-Benz fulfills hunter's dreams.
Post, Bank Leu: animals as actors or as pure image icons.
Luca Aloisi