A Tootsie Pop® Role in AMA Deliberations? Try the Banana. No, the Mango!

I didn’t realize: Tootsie Pops come in Wild Mango Berry. The AMAHouston Communications Committee* is sitting around this morning in the Savage conference room, sucking on candy…particularly the headlined Tootsie Pop.

Given our “business” focus today, the fact that some of the confections come from a company called Tootsie Roll Industries is reassuring to those of us who grew up to be captains (or maybe just sergeants) of industry, too.

The source of dentists’ profitability since 1896, you may (or may not) be old enough to remember original Dots and Charms. Or Sugar Daddies – that one drove our parents nuts ‘cause the chewy caramel thing could pull a filling out of your mouth just by taking off its bright yellow wrapper.

There were Tootsie Rolls themselves, naturally (boyhood sniggers continue to this day). Years ago though, the jewels in Tootsie’s crown were the Pops:

What goes into the world’s number #1-selling candy-filled lollipop? Start with a chewy, Tootsie Roll center; cover it with a delicious, hard candy coating; and you’ve got a simple, delicious treat, a Tootsie original that was the first lollipop providing an embedded candy “prize.” And at only 60 calories per fat-free pop, it’s the perfect guilt-free, sweet tooth-pleasing treat that everyone can enjoy.

Like the website says, that chocolaty center was and still is yummy. In my schooldays, the flavors were standard: Orange, Cherry, Grape, Raspberry…and Chocolate, the double whammy of the line-up. Sometime after I stopped being a customer, Tootsie Roll added a “…new sixth flavor that alternates among Pomegranate, Banana, and now Green Apple” but this website bit is misleading because over three or four decades, there were plenty of different flavors added and subtracted from the line-up. (An easy start on Tootsie Pop lore is Wikipedia.)

Like any modern CPG outfit, Tootsie Roll keeps on changing its line-up. Recently I’d heard there’s a Peanut Butter Tootsie Pop – that turns out to be wrong. Tara Johnson told me this morning that there’s a Caramel Pop, which I discover is a “Limited Edition.” I’d like to try one of those.

In the mixed bags on the conference table this morning were also some of the Banana sort plus these bright orange-and-purple Pops titled Wild Mango Berry. It turns out this one’s part of the company’s “Wild” series…currently with five flavors.

I like Mango. It’s amazing what you can learn from a dedicated group of professionals.

*This subset of AMAHouston volunteers must not remain nameless: Marketing Communications VP Johnson I’ve already mentioned. Also out for the workshop this morning were Jen Pearsall, Michelle LeBlanc, Robin Tooms, Tillie Nutter, Tom Richardson, Allyson Bandy, Amy Dionne, Erika Waters, Shanthi Subramanian, Jared Houser…and me. Now somebody please pass the Whoppers.

Softness Worth Sharing: It's the Most Genuine Kleenex® Brand Campaign.

As of this morning, my Kleenex Brand Share Package – a small pack of “America’s Softest Tissue” – joined the 718,280 packs already sent free during this outstanding and warm-hearted campaign.

If for some reason (career death, wiping your nose on your sleeve, whatever) you haven’t reviewed this pitch-perfect marketing pitch, start with the TV commercial. Then go on to the Kleenex Brand website.

Note, among other things, the interactive graphics. The charm. The honest smiles. The nod to Norman Rockwell’s “Gossip” – look down there at the bottom of the web page. Check under the hood, too: the detailed operation of the Kleenex brand send-a-pack program is great. You can even track the “Chain of Sharing” online.

The program is also fully supported by print, like the most recent ad I’ve seen – and shown here. When you undertake a justifiably thorough review of the Share Package campaign, you will see that the print executions are not just knock-offs of the TV commercials or adaptations of web graphics, but have a gentle little edge. I’m wishing I had created “Get well, Mr Snufflepottomus.” Honestly.

This is outstanding thinking and outstanding creative. It proves again that you don’t need heavy metal or exploding cars to make a great campaign. This is what being a “Big Brand” is all about and I thank Kimberly-Clark Worldwide for bringing it to us. Gesundheit!

In the Sun Chips Bag: a Lesson in Marketing Innovation and Demand Generation.

Is there anyone out there who doesn’t know Sun Chips is getting out of the eco-bag business? In another high-volume “end of the world as we know it” outcry, the eco-pundits have already massively condemned Frito-Lay, from the local (Lauren Marmaduke, Houston Press) to the national (Kate Sheppard, Mother Jones)

Marmaduke is a blaster: “…the morons at Frito-Lay.” Sheppard’s more balanced: “I don't necessarily blame Frito-Lay. It’s a corporation and its job is to keep customers happy (and make money), so I can forgive them a little timidity on the issue, given that Sun Chips sales were apparently plummeting.”

Let’s take this single paragraph as a guide to seeing where perceived social good and marketing intersect, and what happens then. The Wall Street Journal’s Eric Felten exposes pundits’ contempt for American consumers while defending the market process: “You can add the Sun Chip bags to the pile of eco-virtuous products that consumers found less desirable than the traditional products they replaced.” (This sentence, I believe, is key.)

Felten’s must-read article fairly describes the market process and how it works, when it comes to consumerism. Eco-products have to work better than the items they aim to replace. Or the marketplace will drive them out.

Frito-Lay, like many consumer companies, is superb at introducing new lines: I wrote about its Flat Earth Baked Veggie Chips here. And when these Sun Chips biodegradable bags were introduced, Frito-Lay was a hero yet again. This week, it’s a goat.

To build a Matt Ridley argument, the introduction and marketing of biodegradable Sun Chips packaging with its subsequent glowing praise; the bags’ elimination with its screaming (and one-sided) condemnation; and the company’s pledge to find a more consumer-friendly replacement are all part of “the perpetual innovation machine that drives the modern economy.”

Now will you please stop whining about the damn bags.

Sandwich IV: “You Don’t Have to Be Jewish to Love Levy’s Real Jewish Rye.”

The world’s greatest sandwich ingredient promotion started in 1960 with just a couple-three ads and some subway posters. The Levy’s Real Jewish Rye campaign was created* by Bill Bernbach of DDB.

Among any group of thoughtful advertising people today, Bernbach is one of our industry’s greats. But everyone has to make a start somewhere. In the beginning of DDB, the little Yiddische bakery in Brooklyn known as Henry S Levy and Sons could get Bernbach for a $40,000 budget. DDB worked for Levy’s for years before giving birth to the “You don’t have to be Jewish” ad campaign, which used photos of people of different ethnicities and cultures enjoying the Jewish rye. The shooter was Howard Zieff.

In one interview, Zeif said, “We wanted normal-looking people, not blond, perfectly proportioned models…I saw the Indian on the street; he was an engineer for the New York Central. The Chinese guy worked in a restaurant near my Midtown Manhattan office. And the kid we found in Harlem. They all had great faces, interesting faces, expressive faces.”

Bernbach, Zieff and DDB were the creators – the 50-years-ago architects – of today’s Hellman’s® ads and Nature’s Pride™ ads and Oscar Mayer ads. Those Zieff photos with their humorous connectivity to real people were fresh in the ‘60s. The copycats don’t have much to say for themselves that’s innovative.

Bernbach has gone to the great deli in the sky. The Levy’s brand (no longer very good according to one review) is now submerged in George Weston Limited. And I have shorthanded a remarkable advertising story.

The Levy's campaign is great sandwich advertising by a great advertising agency. That’s my last word on the subject. But I’ll leave the capper to Jiffynotes:

“Levy’s had its competitors, but their names were largely lost to history simply because none of the competing bakeries in Brooklyn hired ad agencies that immortalized them.”

*The Mirror Makers credits DDB copywriter Judy Protas and art director Bill Taubin for the actual campaign creative (page 254). I will too.

Sandwich III: Our Lady of Grilled Cheeses Offers Prayers for Stronger Ad Creative.

Honest, officer, I didn’t know it was loaded. Having started a look at advertising the sandwich in Signalwriter’s previous two posts, though, it’s a difficult subject to put aside.

Is the sandwich really capable of being turned into a metaphor for advertising creativity? I suppose so. Just how far can the idea be taken? If current ads are too bland and undistinguished, what’s at the opposite end of the spectrum?

My candidate comes from a post by Mike Stanley some six years back. He carefully collected parodies surrounding the woman who, having seen an image of the Virgin Mary in her grilled cheese sandwich, promptly offered it on eBay. Read about Stanley’s entire adventure here.

Executionally, “Our Lady of Grilled Cheeses” could hardly be more of a standout. It’s as though the image’s creator* realized the ultimate power of icons and translated that force directly into his or her visualization. The illustration is artistic. It features a woman (ie, homemaker). It includes the sandwich. No headline required.

Opportunities to offend abound – as if people today need a wider range of options. Consider it something to aim for: just how much breakthrough can be had in a single (potential) print ad, elevating the humble grilled cheese into heavenly fare.

*The person who created this visual is not identified. Who it is? Please let me know so I can credit the outstanding work. For more hours of fun, Google “Virgin Mary, Grilled Cheese Sandwich.”

Sandwich II: the Fashion for Smiley Consumers Here, There and Everywhere.

No sooner written about (below), than more sandwiches are showing up in more ads everywhere. Example: the latest number of Real Simple magazine (which editorially seems now to be equating “body” with grown women who weigh no more than 67 pounds). In its pages, you will not only see another Hellman’s® ad with a different sandwich-stuffed face; you’ll also find the Nature’s Pride™ ad pictured in this post.

Next move on to Woman’s Day. Look at the print ad from Oscar Mayer entitled “Score.” This time, it’s a kid with the sandwich. Sean Marks, Oscar Mayer’s director of marketing, is quoted as saying of the ad campaign launched in January, “Our goal is to capture these spontaneous, real-life moments to demonstrate the relevance our products have in the lives of people today.” It doesn’t look to me like the Kraft brand’s agency broke much of a creative sweat on the sandwich execution.

Maybe all of America’s art directors met and pronounced, “Let’s always show a happy smiley face our product(s).” Maybe it’s the summer cycle, time for casual eating.

On the biz-side, we have called this the “rig-in-the-sunset” problem. A huge number oil and gas-related ad executions shows an oil rig, onshore or offshore; with a sun either rising or setting in the background. For our industry right now, sunset is probably appropriate.

The real question (for both food and energy industry advertisers) is this: can you afford to look just like your broad-image competition? In the cases of Hellman’s, Nature’s Pride and Oscar Mayer, apparently so.

Sometimes It’s the Simplest Headline that Appeals the Most.

It’s possible I’m tired (momentarily) of pretension. More likely, as you look back through this blog, you’ll see that I pay more attention to the ad campaigns with the simplicity of human emotion than with the bombast of high fashion.

Quirky robotesses, like the Svedka models here, lose their appeal in the face of homemade sandwiches, I guess. So this new print ad for Hellman’s® Light Mayonnaise caught my eye – it’s clearly part of the Unilever brand’s Real Food Project. For this ad, the campaign tagline has been extended: “It’s time for real sandwiches.”

The web part of the campaign is overtly commercial, to me. Still, it’s the place one discovers that Hellmann's Light Mayo will be the first recipe in the product line to contain 100% certified cage-free eggs, part of the “real food” emphasis.

More than anything, though, I just like the ad headline: “Not all love notes are written. Some are made.” Pompous has its place but not in this kind of food advertising.