Answers for Adam: My guilty obsession with that bacon ad

I don’t think so. Gut feel.

I can’t speak for the whole population – but on Sunday morning I was getting ready to make myself some bacon and eggs. Then this add popped up on the tele and I had cereal instead.

I love bacon and I am sure I will eat it again…. one day soon. But it certainly put me off the whole whole product, let alone the brand, for the immediate time being. Even as I type I have to minimise the screen so I can’t see the YoutTbe preview.

I mentioned this to my friends who hadn’t seen it. When they saw it last night they all texted me to say they saw it, and how they too thought it was gross.

So no, I do not think it will work.

Good question Adam – here’s my personal opinion. At a product level, it doesn’t really make me want to eat more bacon – in fact it probably does the opposite, but I doubt this ad is about raising sales of bacon, but rather gaining market share for Primo. So as a brand spot, it does a great job of raising awareness of Primo Small Goods as a pre packed supplier in a category where (I assume?!) a lot of people buy direct from the deli at the supermarket.

It seems to fall into the trap of promoting the category rather than the brand.

Not sure why I’d remember this as Primo.

Nor why I’d buy Primo over any other bacon.

I woul have to agree with Phil. I can’t imagine this ad increasing sales for primo but I don’t think that was the goal..
Who doesn’t appreciate a love for bacon? A somewhat provocative (creative) ad like this to gain market share and boost awareness of the brand/product. I think this ad enables future sale driven stratergies to be far more effective as a greater population has awareness of the product.

Food for thought.

I think it might just about work, but only if they get their POS lined up well. I think the ad is probably (just about) intriguing enough to make people hang around to see which brand it’s for, but I don’t think the creative is strong enough for Primo to get much credit for entertaining.
But I think you’d need good presence on-shelf to help trigger that memory, as I think it’ll be pretty latent. (And no I don’t work for a retail agency).

Personally I don’t think it will do a category job as it doesn’t talk new occasions or have enough ‘food p0rn’, but even if it did, you’d need to have pretty strong market share to really take advantage of it, which I don;t think Primo have.

But surely they could have had some slightly more appetising, less flabby looking bacon?

Adam, I don’t think this will work. It isn’t doing a “category job”, so much as a “job on the category”.

Fast losing that bacon craving as a result of the massive and floppy portions portrayed here. And, sorry – as broad-minded as I’d like to think I am – I can’t imagine who’d be turned on by the thought of lying naked in a bed of bacon. Maybe I missed the humour.

Nothing really wrong with the American Beauty reference for this idea, but the idea itself is off the mark for mine.

Arty creatives trying to appropriate the american bacon meme.

Doesn’t have the same resonance in australian meme space so struggles for connection.

what is it with all the post coital pleasure expressionism in food/beer tv ads.

Who’s the target, bacon eater or bacon purchaser? Perhaps having a Cro-Magnon-grade idea might make Mum think that’s what Dad wants. Sorry to appraise the creative, but I think its part of what’s happening here.

@Nick. Spot on re: shopper marketing. This ad doesn’t say ‘Primo’ so much as it screams ‘bacon’, so some in-store prompts would be necessary.

If you were to ‘backbrief’ the ad, the first question would be to think about who the target audience may actually be.

Thinking in reverse from the creative execution, i think this ad is more about targeting the bacon “superfan”, and not just your average punter who likes bacon. The ad still works for these people even if they don’t get the american beauty reference.

A quick google around for bacon related memes and stuff like
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PiWdF3u9C0w

…may reveal a bit of a trend about people freely putting their hand up and claiming ‘superfan’ status as well.

Applying that logic the brief may have been to target bacon superfans who are increasingly eating out for breakfast (also a broader category trend), and get them to increase bacon consumption at home (‘good morning bacon’), or perhaps just to make sure it’s on the shopping list.

If true i can see how this may work from a sales perspective for them, albeit in a nichey way.

at a guess (budget permitting) they’ll follow up with a couple other executions to demonstrate/ connect with bacon superfans…

No it turns me off bacon and Primo.

Personally I don’t think it will work. Yes, it has made me aware that Primo sells bacon, but not because of the end of the add and the Primo logo as I didn’t last long enough to get to the end. Put off by it so clicked stop. Aware simply because of the comments in the media about the Primo ad.

Would I purchase Primo bacon as a result of the ad? No, when I look for bacon I look at the type of bacon and how it has been cured, is it smoked or isn’t it, is it Canadian Maple cured, Applewood smoked or British Style. I’m looking for the quality and flavour, the ad does nothing for me in that respect. If I was selling it that is what I would focus on but I’m not the expert as not in the ad industry.

Tough brief in a presumably nightmarish category for differentiation, and I suppose it depends on the business problem they were trying to solve, but can’t see any obvious ones that this will help with.

The role of Primo feels too weak to be a branding/share play (this could be helped at POS like other have said, but shame to have to solve this problem and without much of a benefit/role claimed in the advertising to play with).

Can’t help but feel like it would turn occassionals off – like most comments on here – so left with Mishter’s bacon porn for SuperFans. But if that’s true, we’re back at the problem of where’s the role for the brand again (presumably a ‘bacon’ brand being fans of their own product is not earth shattering news).

Surely for bacon there is no need to create desire – it’s the one meat that even vegetarians crave – so the biggest business problem would be how to reduce the barrier of ‘the most unhealthy meat’. Can’t believe that lying in it will do much for that!

Cooked, sizzling bacon on the griddle, good.
Raw bacon, bad.
Looks like lady parts.

didn’t see it at the time but the PR plug for the campaign gives some indicators to the strategy

https://mumbrella.com.au/ogilvy-sydney-draws-american-beauty-promote-primo-bacon-213672

Ogilvy says its targeting:
“all Australians who simply get lost in their love of bacon and the emotions they smell” to reconnect with all Australians who love quality bacon
(people who) like to get “lost in their bacon moment…whatever that moment may freakishly be. “People who love bacon will get this ad.”

Per previous post i’d kinda sum that by calling them ‘bacon superfans’ (or insert witty name version)

It’s a bit of a non sequitur, but for the people above who ‘don’t get the ad’ – Ogilvy could argue (as Steve Back from Ogilvy attempts to in the article) ‘that’s because you don’t LOVE bacon’… but anyway there’s a separate debate to have.

The other point they make is>>
It’s memorable and is vastly different for the category,” said Back.

In sum – they’re targeting bacon superfans by zigging when everyone else is zagging (everyone else most likely talking up F&B type stuff like in Angi’s comment above).

I have never ever noticed a Primo ad before this.
I like the fact that it attracts attention visually, and rewards that attention immediately with a smile.
But I already love bacon, & I love American Beauty, so for me it’s a bacon category grower.
The Primo Branding is almost an afterthought – however, it’s a now a brand that I’ll remember with a smile – which is as much as anyone can ever hope for.
I’m a bloke & I actually buy bacon – so the ad is talking to me…but is it aimed at me?
I’m trying to see the attraction in the idea for women, whom I’m guessing would be the main purchasing category here, but as I’m a bloke I can’t really go there.
It appears that better than 90% of the above comments are from blokes, so I’d love some female perspective.

At a basic level advertising needs to do two things.

1. get noticed
This will get noticed because it’s creatively very good.

2. be well enough branded so you know who the ad is about.
This where it falls over, it’s barely branded at all so does as much for every other bacon player as Primo.

Planners on this need shooting, unfortunately.

The guilty secret of the advertising industry is that, other than retail, ads rarely “make you go out and buy something”. And even with retail, you often go out and buy something else. Advertising just puts your product or brand onto the target’s mental short list – that’s the 2 or 3 brands that popup in your skull when you stand at the supermarket fridge. The guilt comes because it virtually doesn’t matter what’s in you ad, as long as it gets attention and doesn’t put your target off.

Luckily CEOs don’t realise how much dough is swindled from them in the name of research and strategy – there’s a lot of people involved, including their marketing people, who need to bring home the bacon. Oops, too late I’ve written it.

As long as it got noticed and didn’t put your market off, it will work. And putting people off seems to be the discussion here. I don’t believe real people even care enough to be put off:

“Gotta call Katie, feed the dog and the fish, what’s that ? – oh it’s an American Beauty piss-take. Kinda funny. What’s it for? “