Aldi’s lemon on a pear ad is more than just a catchy earworm
While some might think it's cheesy, or worse, ripping off a beloved internet meme; CHE Proximity's Brian Jefferson argues we need more memorable ads like Aldi's Bon Jovi tribute in the world.
Earlier this month, Aldi in the UK released an ad which received praise, tabloid column inches and social media shares around the world.
If you’ve had Bon Jovi’s Livin’ On A Prayer stuck in your head for the past week, then I’m willing to bet you know which one I’m talking about.
What comes next? ? https://t.co/3g7dpLN0gU pic.twitter.com/oKUa5rCDwn
— Aldi Stores UK (@AldiUK) 28 April 2018
So what was it about the cheesy use of wordplay that made so many sit up and notice this one?
At first glance this looks like a pretty basic Award School ad.
Take the red prices off and it that’s pretty much what it is. But that’s also what kind of makes it amazing. It’s simple, real and it ran in the difficult category of retail advertising.
Is it the cleverest ‘smile in the mind’ ad we’ve seen? Nah. Certainly not in the league if some of the ‘great ads’ over the years like VW’s Lemon, ‘I never read the economist’ or even the recent FCK KFC work.
Plus, there are some who might argue they simply ripped off this ‘lizard on a chair’ meme from 2016.
Whoa, we’re halfway there…
Whoa-oh… pic.twitter.com/0o7i4h8M8l— Periwinkle Jones (@peachesanscream) August 22, 2016
But nevertheless, the ad is witty, memorable, and as it turns out, shareable. After all, I shared it on social media and now I’m writing an opinion piece about it. Even Reddit loved it.
Take my ham we’ll make it I swear… pic.twitter.com/rTtUc2bDbK
— Anthony Parkes (@Exponent69) 28 April 2018
A rare set of outcomes for a discount supermarket chain ad.
If there were ever an example of an ad which actually delivered on the promise of ‘achieving cut through’, this would be it.
It displays the perfect marriage of a witty headline working seamlessly with a simple image to make people notice, and in turn love, an ad.
And by ‘love’, I mean an ad that the tabloids write about, the morning shows do a piece on and that you’ll likely show your mum.
And I’m sure the team were excited to take it and sell it to the client.
Lemon on a pear.
We need more of this in the world today.
Brian Jefferson is group creative director at CHE Proximity.
Take an old meme and turn.the idea into an ad, and then it gets praised by the industry. Is this what we have become? Seriously, have a think about the fact this article appears in Mumbrella and have a think about what it says. And marketing is a science apparently?
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First seen: 2016. https://imgur.com/gallery/0IYNy
When stuck, ask an office millennial what dank memes they know of which might be appropriate.
Imgur and Reddit are a free Getty images for memes. Catch the fever!
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A few words and a picture got some fun brand personality through while communicating the offer. People even picked it up and spread it further. What else do you want? If I were the client I’d be pretty pleased. Damn sure beats the prototype wifi-connected fridge magnets that detect when your fruit is going bad or whatever the hell the next tech hipster agency tried to pitch and nobody outside the award circuit could possibly care about.
God, we must be the only industry that thinks if it’s stupid but it works, it’s still stupid.
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Did any notable size of regular people get excited about this ad? Or is it just us advertising folks?
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Brian, is your profile pic, ummm, inspired by Melbourne design agency Collier Creative? They’ve been illustrating staff pics this way for years:
https://www.facebook.com/colliercreative/photos/pcb.1695616620499375/1695616503832720
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The comments on this article are (predictably) peak Mumbrella. Especially the first one…
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Where is the proof that it works? Brand measures? Direct response measures?
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What part of the comment can you counter, as opposed to simply not liking the comment? How did this campaign move the needle for the client, or if it was a sales tactic, did it work? Was the work not a rip-off of a meme? Is this not plagiarism of an idea? Was it not 2 years later? Did it raise any measures by which advertising is measured? Your counter argument is non existent, if you do sincerely want to raise the standard of discussion. If you were a client you would be pretty damn pleased . . . because it worked or because your personal response is positive? Your personal response is not a metric that matters.
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There is a lot of evidence across multiple studies (IPA, etc.) about the indirect effects of advertising and the fact that people buy brands they like. Isn’t the starting point of a campaign to get as many positive personal responses as possible? If people like something they’ll pay attention to it, maybe even act on the messaging. However @itworks, if you believe that if something doesn’t immediately spike sales then it doesn’t work, then you’re part of what’s wrong with this industry.
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I did not mention sales. Re read my post, show me any metric. A cute idea, even a ripped off one, does not mean it works.
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I don’t work for them obviously and this is still quite recent so it’s hard to say the whole story here. We as observers can discern some things though, and there’s more evidence to say it did work over it not working.
This is one of dozens of cataloguey posts they do every month. The only objective would seem to be communicating the offer. If they can get a bit of engagement and brand personality on top, that’s a bonus.
The reddit post was viewed (voluntarily I might add) some 450,000 times. Of those, some 18,000 liked it enough to upvote it. About 88% of the people who were motivated enough to express something expressed approval. Reverse image search shows a wall of further shares on websites, blogs and social media. For an ad. A retail ad. On the internet.
For free.
Yes, I’d say the client was likely pretty pleased.
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“if it was a sales tactic, did it work”. A simple search shows the idea has been picked up and shared by multiple publications (show me that reach works?). One can more easily connect the dots that the idea was pretty successful then call it a failure. Unless you have metrics that indicate otherwise?
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You are judging marketing success on shares, good luck with that.
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You argument for this being a success is based on being able to connect the dots, and then you want evidence that something didn’t work to repudiate your assumption? OMFG.
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