Inside Track by Peter Martin
Who said it doesn’t pay to advertise? Both Burger King and Coca Cola have certainly extracted maximum benefit from the launches of their latest advertising campaigns.
But it has not been the ads themselves that have made the real impact, but the media attention that has surrounded their unveiling. Both have secured coverage in the national press – and for Coke pricelessly on the BBC.
When you hire Britain’s Got Talent judge and former News of the World editor Piers Morgan as your pin-up, as BK did, you can probably plan for extra attention. You probably factor that into the fee.
Nonetheless, the PR coverage across national media last week was almost blanket from the Guardian to The Telegraph to The Daily Mail.
Morgan stripped off to be the face, and body, of a new a “meat-scented” cologne by Burger King, called Flame. He will appear in a tongue-in-cheek poster campaign lying in front of a blazing fire wearing a rapper-style Burger King gold chain with nothing but a small velvet rug. The billboard ad features the strapline: "The scent of seduction. With a hint of flame-grilled meat."
Burger King has also created a "making of" video featuring the 44-year-old Morgan stripping off and preparing to be photographed, which is what has attracted all the attention.
The perfume will be sold in Selfridges and Red5 gift shops for £4.99. Burger King claims that it is the cheapest celebrity perfume on the market. Cardboard cut-outs of Morgan, holding the fragrance, will be used in 19 of the company's restaurants closest to Red5 outlets.
Coca-Cola’s celebrity may not have been so predictable, and has more to do with the reaction of Britain’s “something-must-be-done” brigade.
Its TV advert featuring pop singer Duffy cycling through a supermarket hit the headlines after health and safety complaints. Eighteen viewers complained the singer was not wearing reflective clothing and her bicycle had no lights in the Diet Coke commercial. The Advertising Standards Authority, which subsequently cleared the ad for broadcast, also said four viewers worried children could copy her behaviour.
Coca-Cola argued the ad was supposed to reflect "Duffy's fantasy". It shows the singer coming offstage before sipping from a can of the cola and cycling through dark streets and into the store, before returning to her concert in time to perform an encore.
The result is that the story again gained national media attention, not least from the BBC. A clip from the ad was still on the corporation’s website on Friday.
If you haven’t seen the ads, try www.guardian.co.uk for the BK ad and www.bbc.co.uk for Coke.
And the moral of all this seems to be that if you are going to make a noise make it loud and edgy, and milk any opportunity for all it’s worth. It certainly never pays to be dull and boring, but it does pay to promote.
