Due North Communications Inc.

On The Street.

Who You Are

Who We Are

What We Do

Our Clients

Creative

On The Street

Breaking through on a budget

By David Todd Strategy Magazine, October 11, 1999

As anyone who has made a recent trip to the local movie multiplex can attest, a big budget does not always spell high quality.

When it comes to television advertising, however, many marketers assume that if you want impact, you have to be prepared to spend serious money. Labatt money. Nike money. Try to do it on the cheap, and you’ll find yourself in the hall of shame alongside Oliver Jeweller and Sleep Country Canada.

Well, it ain’t necessarily so. With the right idea and a smart approach to execution, an advertiser can produce a memorable spot on a shoestring.

To demonstrate the point, Strategy offers up two recent examples: “Guys Night” for Shirriff Lemon Pie Mix, created by The Crichton Kim-Kirkland company, and “Granny’s Ride” for the Sony ESP2 Discman, created by Due North Communications.

Shirriff Lemon Pie Mix

The Creative Execution: We open on a suburban rec room. Four men sit on couches, tucking info after-meal helpings of pie and coffee. “Exquisite meal, Stan,” says one to the host. “Your wife is one lucky lady.”

“Well, sniffs Stan, you might remind her of that.”

Stan, it seems, is feeling a little underappreciated by the missus. The others are quick to share their sympathy -all, it seems, have grown a little tired of being taken for granted. “For me,” says one, “it’s the little things. Hello? Flowers would be nice.”

From there, conversation turns to the “amazing” pie. Stan’s recipe? “Shirriff Lemon Pie Mix. It’s easy and the kids love it.”
As the spot closes, our foursome is trying to decide on a video: Beaches or Thelma and Louise?

The Thought Process: Mississauga, Ont.-based Oetker wanted to create a more contemporary image for Shirriff, a brand that hadn’t advertised on television for a decade, and to make it more appealing to a younger audience. “We needed to move it from Leave it to Beaver to Home Improvements,” says Dave Crichton, partner and creative director with The Crichton Kim-Kirkland Company.

The product positioning is “the pie for special occasions.”

In communicating that message, however, the agency sought to broaden the definition of “special occasion” to encompass more than just holidays like Thanksgiving or Christmas, and show how the product could enhance even a relatively casual get-together, such as a dinner with friends.

The “Guys Night” creative concept, with its unexpected gender-role reversal, represents an attempt to grab viewer attention by playing around with the conventions of advertising in the category. With a few minor dialogue changes, Crichton says, the same spot could have been filmed 10 or 20 years ago. But by casting men instead of women, the agency put a twist on the ad and made it altogether more memorable.

Pulling It Off: The “Guys Night” commercial was one of two spots created for Shirriff (The agency worked with Avion Film Productions; Jean-Marc Piche was the director.) While the budget for the two spots was quite modest, Crichton says the production values weren’t compromised. Keeping the executional approach simple helped to hold costs in line, he notes. Using the same location to shoot both ads also created some economies.

Crichton says the agency deliberately avoided giving the Shirriff advertising a slick, over-produced look. The rec room where they shot the “Guys Night” commercial, for example, was an honest-to-goodness rec room, complete with shag carpeting -the only props added were a couch and some pictures.

Lessons Learned: Many packaged goods clients will spare no expense on commercial production, Crichton says. But there’s such a thing as going overboard.

“The perception is that the film has to look amazing, because you’re dealing with food and trying to make it appetizing,” he says. “But consumers don’t need to see the pores in the meringue for the pie to be mouthwatering on screen.”

Sony ESP2 Discman
The Creative Execution: A suburban street, photographed in noxious green and brown tones reminiscent of ’70’s TV. A large green boat of a car lurches down the road in fits and starts. An elderly woman peers over the steering wheel, while her disgruntled-looking grandson slumps in the passenger seat, sucking on a Slurpee and listening to his Discman. We can hear the tinny sound of music coming through headphones.

As Grandma brakes and accelerates, the Discman skitters wildly along the dashboard, and at one point comes flying forward, nailing junior squarely in the crotch. But the CD plays steadily on, unaffected by all the jostling and general abuse. Then, a voice-over: “The Sony ESP2 Discman. With continuous shock protection, so the music goes on and on.”

The Thought Process: Although the budget for this spot was exceedingly tight -“substantially” under $100,000, according to Due North creative director Karen Howe -the creative team enjoyed a couple advantages.

For a start, they were dealing with a product whose point of difference -it never skips, no matter how much it gets knocked around- lent itself well to demonstration. They also had a tightly focused target group: teenage boys, with 16-year-olds being the bull’s-eye.

The team (copywriter David Gee and art director Jeffrey Willbee) got their creative juices flowing by hurling the product around a boardroom, to find out if it really could deliver on its promise. Eventually, they arrived at the concept of the teenage boy’s ultimate torture test. “We wanted something that a 16-year-old would relate to as an excruciating experience,” Howe says. “and that led to the idea of being stuck in a car with your grandmother.”

Pulling It Off: When you’ve got a killer creative idea, Howe says, a good production house is generally willing to do whatever it takes to get it done. In this case, she notes, Toronto-based Sparks Production worked hard to help cut corners on costs wherever possible -in part, because it saw an opportunity to develop a new director: former creative Dave Popescu. “People were good about donating their time and being flexible. And we were prepared to be flexible with them, too.”

Lessons Learned: Contrary to widespread belief, a strong television spot doesn’t have to cost the earth, Howe says. But it’s also important for a creative team to “work smart” -to recognize the limitations imposed by the budget, and to stay with in the framework when developing concepts.

“You need to know that you cannot go out, get Mick Jagger as your spokesman and hire a cast of 250. You have to be playing in the right creative sandbox.”

Back to Articles