Here is the new Cadburys Dairy Milk ad, by Juan Cabral at Fallon London.
It is so obviously brilliant, I don't think there's any need to do a Private View-style description of what makes it brilliant.
But it does beg the question - "what does an agency have to be like, to produce work like this?"
Well, here's the Fallon model:
1. Great planning. Someone has to have the balls to say 'Cadburys Dairy Milk = Joy And That's It'. A big, simple, unitary, true, thought. It's that easy, Planners. And that difficult.
2. A culture that says "the creatives are always right." This ad would have been incredibly difficult to sell, let's not be under any illusions about that. At the vast majority of agencies, the account people would refuse to even present it to the client. So creatives end up not writing breakthrough ads in the first place; they know there's no point. But at Fallon, the culture dictates that the account handlers have to persuade the clients to do what the creatives want, rather than vice versa. The culture says "the creatives are always right".
3. The creatives actually have to be right, time after time. Seems at Fallon, they are.
35 comments:
Do we have to clap at anything that comes out of fallon? Even if it comes right out of their arses?
Milk = Joy, universal truth? Seriously? Sure, maybe that's why they have to explain the ad on the website.
Not to mention the joke is so incredibly random and pointless.
No, I'm not bitter. In fact this is also a joke. Don't get it? Don't worry I'll launch a website soon to explain it.
Dude it's not milk, it's chocolate.
And chocolate = joy is legit, isn't it?
Chocolate = joy is legit.
Does gorilla playing drums to song = joy?
Interesting point.
The gorilla himself is not joyful. In fact he is taking the whole exercise incredibly seriously.
But that's what makes it so funny, right?
It's brave. It's single minded. I'd like to see where they take it before acclaiming it as genius or crap. However smiling at someone/something unexpected playing the drums was done by Mother and Chris Palmer for Magic FM when they had a little black baby playing to Crazy Little Thing Called Love by Queen wasn't it?
Okie scamp, dairy milk chocolate=joy. You got me. I thought they were talking about the Milk in the chocolate (sorry, I'm italian).
I still think to have to explain your ads on the website shows how random this campaign is. And still think you Fallon cousins are over rated.
Scamp,
I found your encapsulation in three simple bullets of what it takes to produce greatness the best distillation on the subject I've come across in an age. F*****g brilliant in fact. Thank you.
what can i say, i like it!
great camera work, nice costume, good attitude, and most importantly it's memorable and not in a bad way.
all that an ad really needs.
Funny still doesn't equal joy Scamp.
And funny and memorable don't equal conversion.
I'm all for random shit, don't get me wrong, but this just doesn't seem to hit on anything...
this might be pedantic but...
shouldn't it be 'glass and a half-ful'?
also the strategy's wack if it doesn't make you smile, coz the chimp ain't joyful that's for sure.
as said above it's magic's old schtick.
lovely direction.
there's another ad with a drumming monkey on you tube.
i heard that this ad was locked away in the vaults at fallon for a while. head of cadburys giving it the old 'over my dead body'. so someone's done some good work (probably shit loads of expensive research) to get it out there.
Angus, I can't speak for everyone, but personally... I feel heaps of joy when that gorilla starts to bang it.
As far as conversion goes... I think it will do a brilliant job. For one thing, it's the only Cadburys Dairy Milk ad I can recall EVER (and I'm 39). That's a good start.
Anonymous, I totally agree about the direction. It is awesome. Wonder who did it?
I checked out the other drumming monkey ad on YouTube. Its existence raises quite a few questions. Deserves a post of its own. Maybe tomorrow...
juan shot it himself.
the sooner he does a frank/chris/vince/andy etc on us and stops writing the better.
then our mediocrity can rise again.
He shot it himself? That's excellent news. For two or three years now I've been hoping he'll go back to Argentina. But this is another way we could get rid of him.
I'm just sitting here wondering why would anyone get excited about a man in a gorilla suit playing the drums?
Its a little bit of fun. As indeed is the chocolate.
There's more than a whiff of fear in the plannersphere within the M25 over this.
I'm loving it. Its punk.
i think it's hilarious. as would any reasonable person.
What is left to say about Cadbury's dairy milk? nothing. everyone knows about it. everyone's tried it. fallon, quite smartly, are using its unique place in the culture to their advantage.
it's painful to hear the advertising killjoys moan on about effectiveness and "connection to the product" .like chocolate is a considered purchase. makes you wonder if they've ever actually done anything that's relevant to mass marketing today.
we're in the age of the internets people! we have to generate our own audiences now. and if a drumming gorilla does it, then brilliant. stop there.
Planners shouldn't fear this any more than anyone else. If you're doing your job as a planner, then you should be asking "what will answer the business need?" and not "does this answer the 'insight' I made up?"
Will this be effective - I'd bet it will. It's going to get people talking - just like it has here. And that will be huge.
I don't think we can all follow this model, because it will wear thin quickly, but it's a great example of how you can communicate when you're not obsessing about the model of thinking and whether you're looking for an insight or a USP - but just good ideas.
Freakin' brilliant.
good point simon. i've recently been to the future and couldn't find a planner anywhere.
these days you have to go with flow (of change). planners should be more societal/cultural synthesizers. that would be useful vs. restating the bleeding obvious and pretending it's an "insight".
the drumming gorilla simply rocks. that's all you can ask of a chocolate bar commercial.
why is there always some twat moaning about planners here?
Bollocks to old USPs.
This ad is itself an USP.
It'll be tattoed with the name Cadbury in the head of everybody who watches it.
My only criticism is merely subjective. I hate mr collins.
But hey that's perfectly remixable
(which is also great).
One danger for this campaign could be that people may remember the drumming gorilla but will they remember Cadbury? It could be like your favourite jokes - you can remember the joke but not the comedian you heard telling it in the first place
"Anonymous said...
why is there always some twat moaning about planners here?"
i don't know. let's do some focus groups and find out.
I'll be curious what the average consumer takes away from this Scamp.
I think it's a wonderful piece of film but I don't know if the connection of Gorilla Playing Drums = Feeling Human Gets Eating Cadbury is immediate.
But I'm American and maybe we feel different about our chocolate.
I can tell you it's the sort of spot that would leave American consumers scratching their heads. But we're used to a much more direct style of advertising.
Any idea what people outside the business make of it?
PS: Your three bullets are right on. The last one in particular: too many clients have been burned by "out there" creative that sucked or didn't tie in to the product at all or (worst of all) was completely forgettable when finished.
toad,
this is a case of creative that builds on what's gone before it. cadbury's dairy milk is the budweiser of chocolate in a UK context. if anything it's a case of over-familiarity with the brand. it's yer basic unit of english confection. much like bud is to alcohol in the US.
the last thing anyone needs is to be reminded of is what the product does/is/stands for in this case. so they're not really going out on as much of a limb as it might seem. the CDM brand could use a little mystery or danger.
I think the real credit should go to whoever is doing Juan's PR. (Presumably it's Juan, so hats off again). It's the first advertisement, since Sony Paint, of course, that has its own by-line.
If it does half as well for Cadbury's as it does for him, that will be some ad indeed.
Number 2 misses the mark. The account handlers don't HAVE to persuade the clients to do what the creatives want. And the culture doesn't say, "the creatives are always right." If the creative is right, meaning the work is right, then everyone in the agency can and will get behind it, creatives and account handlers alike.
Let's be honest, the creatives only appear to be right time after time because there's a smart, strong agency behind them.
in my experience, great work flows from having a great client who knows what they want. you don't really 'sell' anyone. they're either open to drumming gorillas or they aren't.
Fallon UK is on a roll right now. like bbh was a few years ago. they can do no wrong. for now. that feeds on itself. good luck to them.
I think it was the climax leading to the drum beat that has the connection with people.
The gorilla doesn't look joyfully in a happy clappy sense, but you know that beat's goin through every vain in his body. He's lovin it.
My only thought is, if a student team took that idea around agencies...he'd get lauged out the office.
previous anon.
the hypothetical student team would be idiots to "present" the idea to anyone. get a gorilla suit and a a set of drums and a digital camera. put in on youtube. it's not that hard!
I'm not thinking about Cadbury's chocolate.
Nor about a bloke in a monkey suit.
All I can think about is 'love rat' (© Daily Star) Phil Collins, and a 25 year old song about revenge which may or may not involve drowning.
Qute like this.
This is a brilliant comment on evolution vs. creationism.
The Gorilla is a literal representation of Phil Collins.
Phil Collins is a metaphorical symbol for MAN.
In the 1980's, Phil Collins was the drummer for the band Genesis.
'Genesis' means the beginning.
The beginning is the ORIGIN.
So the ORIGIN of MAN (Phil Collins) is APE (the Gorilla).
MAN evolved from APE.
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