Published on
April 22, 2024
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Welcome to the Breakdown, a weekly roundup of the best real-life marketing examples, created for marketers and agency folk that want to create work that actually works.
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In this Breakdown, we're looking at ✨ product avoidance ✨ - not a real technical phrase, but one I’m coining to mean “ads that deliberately don’t show the product they’re quite plainly selling.” So I’m disqualifying ““brand ads”” like that Kenzo spot feat. a dancing Margaret Qualley.
When you literally can’t show your products, dump on the alternatives.
A year ago, LoveHoney had an ad taken down by the ASA. It featured a ball gag, with the copy “Silence is golden, Harry”. Now the ASA may be royalists, but we can’t see too much wrong with this, especially when other brands (like Expedia) also had some fun with the Duke of Sussex’ drama.
Anyway, this year, perhaps not wanting to risk another removal of their OOH ads, LoveHoney have launched a campaign that shows some of the non-sex toys that people use to get off. The kicker - there’s better waiting for you on LoveHoney.
What can we say - it’s smart, visually and verbally funny work. It’s somehow eye-catching despite looking sort of like an old Tesco ad. The innuendos are cheeky but not gross. And more interestingly, we think that the subverted comparisons work so well in LoveHoney’s favour. No one would deny that a purpose-built sex toy would be better than a hairbrush handle. And by taking a bit of the sting and stigma out of personal sexual wellness with the executions, maybe that product message will hit the spot just a bit more deeply.
See, now that was a gross and poorly written innuendo.
The task: announce delicious changes to the most famous burgers in the world.
This may look like we’re cheating. The burgers are right there! That’s literally the product they’re selling!
Yes, yes, we know. But the product is the *new* burgers. Can anyone tell me, having watched the TV ad or seen any of the OOH, what changed about the burgers?
Are there new ingredients?
Is the recipe different?
Is it the sauce? Or the patty? Or the bun?
No, this is still “avoidance”. McDonald’s deliberately did not tell us what changed about the burgers. They kinda told us what stays the same: that familiar taste of a McDonald’s burger, elevated to something operatic, dramatic, beautiful. An exquisite feeling - not a 0.5g reduction in salt or whatever it might be.
In some ways, this work is more forgettable than, for instance, the Raise Your Arches work. But that seems to be a bit of the point. A big client challenge must have been reassuring people that the burgers will still taste at least “the same”, but somehow they’ll also be better. The thing the TV spot does so well is invite you to try the new, updated burgers - while reassuring you that the familiar McDonald’s taste is still there.
Also, we’re not sorry for featuring McDonald’s again. They keep making interesting work, we’ll keep featuring it.
Ok, this also looks like we’re cheating. Maybe the whole “product avoidance” thing was a reach.
Hellmann’s has launched a petition to replace April 30 in the calendar with May 0, to give Canadians an extra day of grilling. So yes, I suppose, Hellmann’s product is right at the centre of this campaign. The product name is literally the idea.
You could also say this is a “brand campaign” - a campaign designed to associate the brand (and by extension its products) with grilling and barbecuing. Fair enough.
But I think there is an interesting kind of avoidance going on here.
May 0 is a new occasion that brings us one day closer to BBQ season, outdoor gatherings with friends and family, and delicious flavours. For Canadians, grilling is an opportunity to bring the people you care about together, and we at Hellmann's feel the same; what better way to kick start the grilling season than starting a day early.
says Harsh Pant, senior brand manager for Hellmann's Canada. The implication is that Hellmann’s mayo is the perfect condiment for barbecues. But even the brand manager doesn’t mention mayo in their own press release.
Of course there’ll be themed new product lines, maybe even a Hellmann’s branded grill brush, and who knows what else. But the point is: there is a difference between promoting purchase or usage of your product in a specific moment, and specifically keeping your product out of direct view to actually engage with that moment itself.
I know I’m being a little facetious here, but I think there’s something interesting with approaches like this. Because let’s not pretend Hellmann’s are the first to follow this formula.
Call them what you want: consumption moments, usage patterns, Category Entry Points (bite me Ehrenberg-Bass Institute, you know they’re similar enough) - investigating when and why your consumers buy or use your product isn’t new. But this Hellmann’s activation shows there are more ways to execute on these insights than literally showing someone in a TV ad dolloping mayo on a burger fresh off the grill. I think that’s all I’m trying to say here: don’t let plain insights lead to plain work by sticking a product in the middle.
People put mayo on burgers —> Let’s change the Gregorian calendar.