High Five: Not Fit for Purpose
Throughout my career, I have been approached by brands to come up with campaigns that will change the world for the better (and win a Cannes Glass Lion along the way, naturally). Though a very noble ambition, it’s a dangerous game if the brand has had no prior history in purpose; through donations, charity partners or a big old juicy B Corp stamp. There are a whole host of platforms dedicated to calling out brands for green-washing, rainbow-washing or any kind of washing for that matter – and too many fall into that trap.
Have a read of Dave Trott’s ‘Disappearing up your own brand purpose’ to see how things can go horribly wrong if purpose is slapped around without serious thought as to why. Lest we forget, poor old Kendal Jenner and the dreaded Pepsi ad.
All this is to say, when it doesn’t feel right for a brand to act, there’s another way you can ‘make the world’ better without quite literally saving the polar bears. Humour.
I’m campaigning for the PR industry and the wider creative world to resuscitate entertainment for entertainment’s sake. And for all those judges of awards to sling a bit of gold to those who spread the lols. We’re in the UK, after all. We’re meant to be quite good at the comedy thing. Given that the news is an absolute quagmire of bleakness right now, a bit of levity when it comes to our campaigns might be just what humanity needs. Stick that in your purpose pipe and smoke it.
Here are my top five campaigns of late that have absolutely no purpose behind them whatsoever, but that made me titter. Let’s have more where this came from...
Uncommon Creative Studio NYC - 'Ratboot'
Agency: Uncommon Creative Studio NYC
Behold! A pair of boots with taxidermied rats inside them. It’s bonkers. It’s disgusting. IT’S REFRESHING. The one-of-a-kind boot took to NYFW, sitting in the frow and shocking the fashion elite. And all to launch Uncommon Creative Studio NYC. Why? Because second to humans, rats (all three million of them) dominate the city. Check it out here.
Heinz - 'Hours'
Not a smidgen of purpose to be seen - just pure facts. The insight: It takes f*cking ages to get ketchup out of those glass bottles. The idea: Heinz calculated how many hours of your lifetime you might spend waiting for its ketchup to come out. The answer: A long time, because it’s Heinz. So it’s worth all the tapping, straining and general fuss-making for a blob of the good stuff. It’s funny. It’s simple. You could imagine old Michael McIntyre doing a sketch about it.
Lynx - 'The Robbery'
Insomnia Cookies - '£4.20'
Insomnia Cookies recognised that there were going to be a fair few hungry mouths on 420 Day (April 20th). 24 hours dedicated to the appreciation of Mary-Jane. So they did one of two things: Offered a £4.20 deal to customers, giving them extra cookies to quench their cravings, and created a Munchie Exchange deal where anyone could bring non-perishable food to the store to exchange for a cookie. Did it save the world? Nope. Did it make a few Mancunians chuckle? It sure did.
