Louie the Fly hijacks ad for sister brand Aerogard
Reckitt Benckiser’s Mortein fly spray has carried out a social media stunt featuring brand icon Louie The Fly interrupting an ad for sister brand Aerogard.
The move is part of an online “bucket list” promotion being carried out on the Louie The Fly Facebook page. Other bucket list stunts include Photoshopping an image of Louie The Fly to make him appear to be meeting Prime Minister Julia Gillard and skydiving.
The low budget campaign is being run by Euro RSCG which was also behind the 2010 “Summer Loving” Aerogard ad.
As well as Louie, the video features viral clips such as Rick Astley performing “Never Gonna Give You Up”, a news interview with a sex shop owner, a double rainbow and the K-Pop music video Gangnam Style.
Early reaction from Facebook fans was mixed. A first comment on the Facebook page was the question: “What’s a TVC?”
A day after the video launched online, it had delivered 706 views and three likes on YouTube and 265 likes on Facebook.
There are no plans for the remixed ad to run on television.
Tim Burrowes founded Mumbrella in 2008. He worked on Mumbrella until 2021. At various points he was editor, content director and editor-at-large.
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That my friends, is the sound of tumbleweed and distant bells chiming.
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Umm… What was that? No, seriously, what was that ad?! He hijacked the ads to show YouTube clips. I could imagine the words being thrown around during the meeting- “it’s a brand jacking using viral videos for the Gen Xers, it’ll be like a viral online flash mob… buzzwords!”
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If only they killed him off in the previous campaign, rather than the sad, slow death at the hands of the pr agency…an icon deserves better.
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I’m pretty sure the only ‘buzz’ will be very quiet, very faint, sound of little wings flapping.
Or maybe I just don’t get it…
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Dear mUmBRELLA, please add like functionality to your comments section. 🙂
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I’m all for giving the kids in the agency on work experience some little projects to work on – but they’re not supposed to ever get presented or ‘made’… WTF
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Never understood the concept of Louie the Fly. If Mortein is so effective how come Louie is still alive after all these years?
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The only thing this has going for it is- it cuts out a large section of the first ad that was so crap it was frightening.
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Confusing “fail”.
And there are two different Louie the Fly voices in there – the first one sounds wrong.
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