Today’s Toronto Globe and Mail includes an interesting piece by Simon Houpt in which he opines on why he thinks the new ad campaign by Ontario’s egg campaign misses the mark. In a nutshell, the new ad campaign for Ontario eggs is in the vein of other farmer centred small farm local food movement marketing campaigns and it features nice farmers and their families.
The pieces are lovely. The farmers come across as genuine good people who love farming. However, as Mr. Houpt notes, the egg laying hens are notably absent. I do note that one of the pieces shows a chicken being gently checked for parasites and a second piece shows eggs being fed by a good natured farmer, and, as a result, it is not that chickens are completely absent. That being said, my take is that Mr. Houpt’s piece leads to the conclusion that the campaign misses the mark because it is premised on the idea that consumers care that “egg farmers are good people and love farming” but really their target consumers care about whether “egg farmers are good to their chickens and chickens have a good life”.
While I am interested in the campaign itself since it is fascinating that egg producers have a “feel good about where your eggs come from” campaign without showing the chicken laying eggs, my interest in this campaign hinges on Distility’s focus on branding best practices and brand strategy. I have three observations on what might have gone wrong or led, in my opinion, to the campaign missing the mark.
1. No Brand Strategy Framework for Content Review
If marketing campaigns are developed without the foundation of a clear, compelling and authentic brand strategy, then there is no framework in place for the client to review content effectively to ensure it meets the brand’s objective.
2. Compelling Creative Campaign Dictates Brand Strategy
In the absence of an articulated brand strategy, an unconscious brand strategy will emerge (in this case centered around egg farmers are good people) which is dictated by appealing creative work. Unfortunately, this can result in a campaign that misses the mark or worse makes the target audience of consumers feel that the brand is disingenuous. In this case, the consumer is left to wonder about where are the egg laying chickens and why they are missing.
3. Brand Strategy Failure
The egg producers may have fallen into a number of traps and pitfalls in their brand strategy process. At Distility, we have developed Distility 1day1brand to ensure that our clients develop their brand strategy using branding and decision making best practices.
What do you think about this campaign?