Budget Direct takes ‘boojay boojay’ out of this world
Insurance company Budget Direct is to retire its quirky couple of the French accented Michelle and her older – presumably – partner Michael in favour of animated aliens.
And the first ad in the new campaign pays tribute to the “Boojay boojay” line with a pastiche of the shower ad.
New logo
The campaign from the low cost insurance company will see the company push a new branding – masterminded by Hans Hulsbosch – as a “Simply Smarter Insurance” provider and also feature a new logo and website.
The new ad campaign sees Budget Direct leave behind Michael and Michelle — a couple the company says have an ‘indefinable relationship’ — and replace them with aliens Zeek and Zia.
Old logo
According to the company’s announcement Zeek and Zia are “the highly intelligent alien couple who live next door”.
The brand has always declined to explain the relationship behind the couple as it added to the mystery of it.
The old ad:
“Initially there was never any brief that said we wanted to change characters or that we even thought we needed characters. It was all about communicating the smarter way we provide insurance,” Jonathan Kerr, director of marketing and digital at Budget Direct, told Mumbrella.
“It just turned out that we liked the idea of aliens with higher intelligence, so to speak, being the ones to figure it out. We are excited about the new campaign, we are also proud of the previous campaign and know many people have enjoyed singing our song and so we wanted to celebrate that we had this wonderful campaign,” he said.
“Therefore the aliens live next door to everyone else and part of them discovering Budget Direct is singing our song.”
The TV campaign will go to air on Sunday and follows a teaser campaign run online since August 5. The company said the aim of the campaign was to highlight Budget Direct’s points of difference in the market.
“We wanted a break-out logo, campaign and positioning that clearly differentiated us from the old school companies, while maintaining the brand personality,” said Kerr.
The ad was made by production house Liquid Animation.
Hulsbosch, founder of Hulsbosch – Communication By Design, said: “The concept redefines the tone of insurance advertising in this country and permits Budget Direct to clearly stand apart.”
Credits:
- Hulsbosch – Hans Hulsbosch executive creative director, Jaid Hulsbosch director , Steve Harrington design director, Belinda Hubball design director, Natasha Marsh senior account director, Lisa Rowlinson senior account director.
- Liquid Animation – Mike Viner direct, Geoff Viner producer, Damon Escott live action director, Georgie Uppington producer
- Client – Budget Direct
Brilliant, well done Hulsbosch!
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They must’ve got all of my letters pleading for them to replace the hot French bird with a couple of CGI aliens.
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Nice idea and good move forward
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What took them so long??!!
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Ho hum, things change, cycle of life and so forth.
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Great.
The logo says it all.
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Downright creepy!
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A seriously horrible ad but as soon as I saw the still I had immediate recall about the brand and of course that dreadful jingle.
With that in mind, sounds like it did a pretty good job!
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Nice one guys!
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Can’t decide if this is the best or worst campaign I have ever seen…
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Yes, yet more insurance ads.
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every French person who has ever seen these stupid ads thanks you. Expect alien invasion anytime now…
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That spot. Th-that press release. Everything about this is uncomfortably surreal. Like reading feverish ramblings scratched into the walls of an insane asylum.
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If you have a business model that allows you to spend shit loads on advertising and you don’t change your advertising around enough then your ads (no matter how shit) are going to be recognized (low involvement processing).
The opportunity cost you’re paying by doing this crap is staggering. Get a creative agency get an interesting idea and make more money.
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“Get bud direct” is a completely different website, but it will cause you to see aliens too.
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Terrible. Should have updated and re recorded the jingle, then created a new live action campaign.
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this is absolutely terrible! I cannot believe they have used aliens…. are you trying to get us used to them, THIS IS wrong man!
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Worst…….idea…….ever
The people commenting that its a great are from another planet!
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1. We’re talking about it.
2. It stands out.
3. Punters know the words.
4. They know which brand it’s for
5. It’s newer than the last version, but doesn’t flush the millions spent on establishing a memory structure down the toilet.
While it would be amazing if every ad could be as cinematic as Citizen Kane, sometimes you just need to advertise the fucking brand.
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Oh no… they’ve gone from almost likable, personable characters… to impersonal, emotionless animations! Why would they do this?
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anything has to be better than the annoying couple in the other ads
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saw this last night – it was a definite ‘what the fck’ moment.
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OK, I think I get it.
In the old version, the water was running upstage of the actress who was rubbing her pre-wetted hair, but not actually washing it. He must have taken all the hot water for shaving.
In the new version, neither human was available so they used animated cartoon.
Either the cartoonist couldn’t draw hair, or they decided to do a skin wash instead.
I didn’t get the relevance of that, or the dry shaving which was made to look like wet shaving.
Hang on……could it be trying to say: With eyes wide open, keep a cool head and avoid close shaves when driving a budget car?
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i have to agree with Shamma – i watched this and thought WTF?! and this was after i’d seen a poster with one of those creepy aliens at the train station, with no logo or reference to the brand! I think this is an opportunity missed – aliens being smarter is a very thin connection IMO…
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Why does the male alien have some sort of Irish/Scottish accent?
But Seriously a completely new ad concept would have been better – a move away from the shower.
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@ ET
If you mix Irish and Scottish , you get basic Canadian via Belfast, the missing ingredient being French.
Scottish has a French influence, so does Canadian. I think you may be on to something here. I disagree about moving away from the shower thing though, I think the shower is quite refreshing.
The disconcerting thing here is that Shower is “Douche” in French and Boojay dose sound like “Boogee,” which refers to social climbing today but used to refer to an enema.
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I despise this ad. No charm whatsoever and washing non existent hair.
Get the old couple back now, you cheapskates!!
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Saw it this morning. Ad has always been terrible, also Michelle is a vampire in the old ad (no reflection or shadow). But hey, people are talking about it, everyone knows the jingle. Profit!
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I need the alien concept explained to me again.
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Nonsense. They’re supposed to be highly intelligent. Why is she rubbing shampoo into her bald head?
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Wayne – gold, however surely that this is actually a message saying that even ‘aliens’ (allianz) knows budget direct is cheaper!
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Really creepy, but thats only because I find “Little Green Men” style of Alien to be creepy.
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how disgusting taking two people out of employment – the face of budget direct – for two stupid aliens….. its now a stupid add
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Half a second into the TVC ….. “yeah this is Budget Direct” …… half a second later “WTF?”. It doesn’t really hit the mark for me.
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If these aliens are meant to be smarter than us, why is the female alien shampooing her bald scalp?
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Yeah, why is the intelligent alien shampooing her bare head. Bring back the real people!
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I’ve a sneaky feeling that the original ad was pulled because it wasn’t really PC to have a sexy young lass obviously under 25 years of age, showering in the same bathroom as some guy who looks much older… You can just see some pious souls tut tutting at the thought and contacting Budget with a Mary Whitehouse style moan… Get them pesky aliens off me… Argggghh… Not again.
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