Mascots: Humanising Animals

One has to be careful when humanising the product that one sells, especially animals. By humanising, I mean giving it human-like features and expressions, portraying emotions and human actions.

Here we have three little piggies, happily being boiled to death to feed you, the customers:

Kentucky Fried Chicken did fine by making the founder, Colonel Sanders, its mascot. But later advertisements, like the ones often shown in the cinemas, have the wee little chicks being best friends with Grandpa Sanders, encouraging him to go to the cinema to watch a movie. 

In which ecosystem do the prey gander about with its predator? Are pigs and chickens masochistic creatures that they enjoy being slaughtered, boiled or fried? Do we, who treat our pets almost like humans, want to have them for dinner afterwards?

It's only safe to humanise animals if you open a pet store, not when you serve them on a plate.

We are more alike than you think

(click image to enlarge)

Recent incidents I've witnessed have prompted me to create this poster:

A puppy,

who was kept in a cage for most of the day, hardly petted or played with.

A rabbit,

who died when its owners went off for a holiday, and its body rotted and was left for some days even after they returned.

Two kittens,

one died and the other left dying after a car backed over it and drove off. Another car came and, ignoring the tiny body still heaving for breath in the middle of the road, ran over it again.

And although some religion believe that animals do not have souls, they still feel pain and fear. Can we claim to be more evolved beings if we do not show a bit of humanity?

Tacky is Sticky

I was lamenting to a friend of mine that recent advertising taglines were rather tacky, to which she commented, "Tacky is sticky".

How true! For example, the "Happy birthday cake to you" line by one particular ice cream retailer is strange, but sticks firmly in my head.

I spotted another example in Manila by one of its local skincare brands, combining the word 'skin' with other relevant words that start with the last letters of the former: SKindulge, SKintellectual, Skinfatuated and, my favourite, SKingenious.

Slightly over the top, but utterly memorable!

MBO Promotions

MBO had been actively promoting their upcoming cineplex (now opened) at Subang Parade through clever boards throughout the mall.

I thought this was delightful:

Cans, Cannes; Cans Film Festival, Cannes Film Festival...Get it?

Of course this wasn't very clear. Not many would have gone online to understand better, like I did. 

But when I did, I thought it was quite clever:

(image: mbocinemas.com)

A charity event to collect can food in exchange for re-run movie tickets! Clever pun, good intentions!

Beautiful Ugly

As oppose to Dove's campaign of featuring naturalness to promote naturalness,  I love Nestle Yoghurt Drink's approach of showing what's unnatural instead.

They manage to feature beautiful unnaturalness which still gets the message across, without 'uglifying' their marketing campaign images 

(think of the pictures on cigarette boxes that are repulsive yet remain an ineffective campaign to deter smoking).

Sex(ual Innuendos) Sell, Genius vs Obvious

Billboard spotted off Federal Highway

I have to agree with Donald Trump that sex sells. It's not the only thing that sells, but probably the easiest to portray and improvise.

This billboard caught my attention with it's catchy tagline and not so subtle sexual innuendo. Although I wonder whether most Malaysians understand the term 'pop your cherry' (which means, to lose your virginity).

Which brings me to the lesson I've learnt over the years regarding marketing communications that are very clever but might not be understood by the general population versus something simple that is easily comprehended by most. Many a times, I've been tempted to go with the former, thinking that such a genius of an idea that I've come up with must not be wasted. But I've realised that there's no point being a genius when no one can recognise your ingenuity (unless you're really an artiste who lives and breathes beauty, surviving on water and air....alas, I'm a commercial copywriter and marketeer who doesn't want to know hunger).

A friend suggested that a better alternative would be "Pimp your berry yet?", using the slang that is popular among the younger people, who are the target audience of such a product. It would still be fun, contemporary and, most importantly, easily understood and identified by the target customers.

Niche Marketing: Targeting the local Chinese market

Until we achieve a truly single minded rakyat, we have to admit that the different races in Malaysia have tastes, styles and preferences based on cultural influences dating back to our ancestors from Palembang, China, India or aboriginal traditions in Borneo.

Hence there is still a need for niche marketing in Malaysia based on race and individual mother tongues.

I recently worked on a project that required such an approach, specifically targeting the Chinese market. When working on such a project, one must make a conscious effort to avoid approaches that can be labelled 'chinaman style' by the public, which led me to explore projects that have successfully achieved a contemporary style yet maintain an oriental flavour:

The Empire Shopping Gallery in Subang Jaya uses a neutral word - Empire - that could apply to any western or eastern empire. 

But it uses its logo to skew perception towards east - 

a chinese coin outline, with the middle pattern being the word 'wang' or 王 that means 'emperor'.

Subang Jaya is a middle upper class neighbourhood with a majority of Chinese residents. Which brings me to the next development also in Subang Jaya:

Da:Men is a mixed residential development in USJ. It translates into 'Grand Entrance' which immediately brings to mind an old chinese mansion owned only by the wealthy. It's a novel way of presenting the well used idea of luxury and comfort.

The logo simply uses the chinese characters, to good effect. Chinese characters are essentially pictograms that depict its subject visually. The character on the right, men, 門, resembles a door. This logo was blown up fully spanning the height of the hoarding surrounding the construction. Whether intentionally or happy coincidence, it looks like big doors on the hoarding, inviting passers-by to walk through them.

I end this entry with a bit of digression. Though I mostly work on English medium projects, the Chinese language has always fascinated me. For instance, the character for wood is mu, 木. To depict a forest, the mu character is simply repeated to represent many trees - sen, 森. 

It also takes less chinese words to present an idea as compared to the English or Malay language. For example, take the simple phrase of "Please be careful" (4 syllables) or "Sila berhati-hati" (7 syllables) as oppose to "Qing Xiao Xin" (3 syllables). Come to think of it, a copywriter for chinese content might be shortchanged if they charge by word basis!