One of my biggest pet peeves with agency creatives (and I'm a former agency creative, so it comes from a place of love) is when they blame the nature of a product for their inability to come up with a fun idea for selling it.
Sure, we all want to work on the sexy clients—fast food, big-budget CPG, alcohol, video games...or as I like to call it, the "Complete Thursday."
But the real creative flex is in selling something that can't sell itself.
To that end, I've consistently been impressed by Rustlers, the microwavable burger brand based in the U.K. Thanks to agency partner Droga5 London, the brand has consistently done some of my favorite advertising in recent years, and marketing execs say it has seen booming growth as well.
In the newest Rustlers ads, the brand leans into its new "Better than you think" tagline by showing scenarios in which seemingly dire events turn out far better than expected.
In one spot, Red Riding Hood arrives to find her grandmother replaced by a wolf—which isn't necessarily a bad thing. In another (a favorite of the Cobra Kai lovers like myself), a high school hallway fight quickly upgrades to an impressive dance battle.
If ads this good can be made for something as initially unappealing as a microwave hamburger, do the rest of us really have any excuses?
All that said, a creative with the best idea on this side of the Croisette is still helpless to effect change if their client refuses to be brave. Advertising excellence, like an epic dance fight, requires hard work on both sides.
The challenge for creatives is to never stop fighting for the right ideas, no matter how many times they hit the wall of client uncertainty. Press through, keep taking the swings, and someday—like with your first bite of a burger out of the microwave—you might be pleasantly surprised.
What are your favorite examples of creatively solving a "tough sell" product? Send me your stories at the email below or at @Griner on Twitter.
David Griner
Creative and Innovation Editor, Adweek
[email protected]
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