Devondale highlights the dangers of drinking soy milk by mistake in ad for Fast Start
The physical revulsion that the unwary can feel after drinking soy milk by mistake is the creative idea behind a campaign for Devondale Fast Start breakfast drinks by DDB Melbourne.
One of the ads, directed by Tim Bullock, features a father whose child thinks he doesn’t like a painting she made of him because he is pulling a disgusted face after drinking soy milk.
Another execution features a husband whose contorted face leads his wife to believe that he hates the idea that the couple must babysit her sister’s kids.
“We had a good laugh when we came up with these executions and there was no better comedic director in Australia than Tim Bullock to bring them to life. A great example of strong strategy brought to life by humour,” said DDB Melbourne’s ECD Darren Spiller.
The TV work is supported by outdoor ads positioned near supermarkets, and point of sale ads.
Credits:
Suzanne Douglas: General Manager Innovations, Marketing and Special Projects
Adam Hamilton: Marketing Manager
Executive Creative Director: Darren Spiller
Creative Director: Simon Bagnasco
Sr Copy Writer: Robbie Brammall
Sr Art Director: Ant Hatton
Head of Broadcast: Simon Thomas
Managing Director: Nick Condon
Account Director: Katie Kouts
Account Manager: Kirsten Tidswell
Production Company: Prodigy Films
Director: Tim Bullock
Executive Producer/MD: Jonathan Samway
Producer: Julianne Shelton
Offline Edit: Adam Wills
Grade: Edel Rafferty, Method Studios
Online Edit: Ziggy Zigouras, Method Studios
Sound Design: Colin Simkins, Gusto Music
Media: Carat Melbourne
LOVE this ad. So funny and our households current favourite TVC.
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Hilarious. Water came out my nose.
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Yeah gold. Effin funny, well cast and acted.
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Udder rubbish. Only agency smunts could attempt to make a bovine excretion more palatable than a pulse or a legume.
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Ads that stereotype/make fun of men are funny and not sexist because reasons.
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@glenno. if only i could understand what the hell it is you are saying, but you do sound angry at something. have a soy latte and a good lie down mate.
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That look should be the realization that he’s into “inter-species adult breast feeding!!!” go vegan!
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Funny but misses the point that most drink soy because they’re lactose intolerant. I don’t see how pointing out that the taste is odd will make a difference.
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This ad is bullocks!!! Plain stupid!!! Won’t be buying Devondale.
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saw this last night – feckin funny it is too
fav ad on tv just now
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Reinforcing Ling’s comment – most people who drink soy milk can only dream of drinking whatever it is that Devondale are selling.
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The facial expressions of disgust should be in an ad where he drank cow’s milk and he just found out about how dairy comes from a very cruel place, and to top it off, his breath smells bad, he has the worst after-taste ever, and he feels ill. Now that really would be funny!!!
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Yep they’re pigs
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These ads are great, well done to all involved. The rest of you, get your hands off it and lighten the F up!
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Uh-oh! The vegans found Mumbrella.
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soy milk is high in estrogen, turning men into whining bitches with man boobs.
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Brilliant.
Great insight and awesome execution. The acting is oscar winning material.
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We are all in fits of laughter over here in our office. So funny. The dad and daughter ad rocks.
Aren’t these types of news pieces onto Mumbrella for critiquing the creatives of the ad? It’s not a place for stating your protest on what bloody milk you drink! Gees people…
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Well written. Well acted.
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Soy tastes gross? Really? Huh, never knew!
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It’s funny AND it annoys vegans. Win/win!
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So it’s perfectly okay for minorities and their dietry/lifestyle choices to be attacked in expensive ad campaigns by the multi-million dollar dairy industry, yet when non-dairy drinkers fight back, we are then put down again by the majority. Pffffftttt. So frustrating, and even more frustrating that we get accused of preaching to the majority. So tell me how being bombarded with dairy ads is any different, if not worse? I’d say we’re being preached to every day by these animal product ads. We are also being mislead by them. How pathetic that the only way Devondale can think of to save their business, is to pick on a non-dairy rival, using the angle that apparently, soy leaves a bad aftertaste. Well, dairy is actually the worst offender at leaving a bad after-taste. Not to mention the accompanying bad breath and ill feeling one gets after drinking the horrid stuff. Never did like being forced to drink it as a kid. Hypocrites, Devondale are, for dairy milk tops the charts for leaving a bad after-taste.
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Love it – simple and hilarious!
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@Athena – you are even funnier than the ad!
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I’m a Vegan and find the ad funny. I chose not to eat meat and dairy because I feel better since doing so, and well the evidence says I’ll be healthier and live longer… I couldn’t care less about what the crazy tree hugging activists have to say… it’s each to their own if they choose to indulge in great tasting meat and dairy at the detriment of their own health they should be free to, and living in a free society means advertising people are free to poke fun at the people who disagree with them.
Suck it up tree huggers.
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Great idea, great actors, but 30 seconds is just too long – the joke loses its punch way too early. The 15 second edit will probably work a lot better – it just needs to go with a faster rhythm – hope they get it right.
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GOLD!!!
True insight too – soy is so polarising
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@Athena.
How often have you had to drink cows milk to know of said aftertaste? I drank a liter of full cream milk every day for years and have never experienced the dreadful aftertaste you speak of. Also am quite healthy, fit as a fiddle and still enjoy a full glass from time to time..
Great ad – creative and effective
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Soy- baiting aside it is a pretty funny joke/ad, but apart from telling me it isn’t soy doesn’t really tell me why I should buy the product, and think most people will struggle to remember who it is for.
Plus do people even realise Up and Go has soy in it?
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Well Athena, re; your first post – despite what I call myself here I came off a dairy farm and not once did our Fresians complain about their life. What’s not to like about being in the fresh air all day and eating grass………
By the way, I don’t see Devondale attacking minorities and their choices, but it is about choice and they are saying choose our products instead. It’s about commerce…..
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Soy Milk gives men bitch tits. Its been proven
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I love the way the vegos and the anti animal products avengers all close ranks and take it personally.
Soy milk tastes like something extracted from soaked rags which have been wrapping fermented cheese, and has then been tempered with heavily diluted pottery clay.
I was presented with some in a cup of tea once and after drinking the first mouthful, nearly collapsed in apoplexy.
The ads are beautifully executed, comedy direction and playing in the classic way, without any hint of “mugging” or trying to be funny. I love them.
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Soy milk gives men boobs
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Great ad – love some of “the life organic” responses (see youtube)
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Agree with Athena, dairy industry is horrible. Cow gets raped(ivf)>if baby male is produced it’s murdered>humans extract cow secretions(which contains blood and pus)>then nifty ad campaign is produce to suck in the masses!
No ethics at all in the meat/ dairy industries.
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Why wouldn’t they target Up & Go? Surely more money there than a small minority segment like soy?
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Brilliant and hilarious. Bravo.
Would be perfect if I remembered the brand of my own accord. It doesn’t help that a competitor (which I can’t remember by name) has launched an identical product at the same time.
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P.S. I love the taste of soy, but I do get the truth in the joke.
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So if you don’t have to (or don’t want to) drink soy, why would you even bother going there?
It’s like telling meat eaters that soy burgers taste crap. No kidding – even vegetarians know that.
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What was the insight exactly?
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How many vegetarians does it take to change a lightbulb?
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Great ads… Just a bit of light-hearted fun that’s a bit different to typical boring dairy advertising. Relax. PS who knew before this campaign that Up & Go contains soy? Not me.
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Tree hugger / vego / the vegans have found Mumbrella (my personal favourite); so caring about the wealfare of animals leads to this kind of response from the community? Interesting.
It’s easy to get a cheap laugh when posting anonymously. Easier again when part of the ‘pack’. But seperate yourself from the pack, head down to a factory (note – not labelling everyone) dairy / pork / egg farm, take your pick, ideally with your partner, kids, nephew, niece and see how it makes you feel. See what aftertaste that leaves in your mouth and the subsequent face that you make as a result.
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WOW dairy DOES make you stupid! Not just a rape and murder and kidnap supporter! Well bully for you MORONS!
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Not a funny ad for young children who may have a severe allergy to dairy products and have grown up drinking soy milk. But then again these kids have probably had to put up with similar facial expressions from ignorant adults in their lives too.
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This was really funny though I had to hide it when my 6 yr old dairy allergic son walked in. It’s bad enough having to take his own little cupcake to birthday parties, eat soy yogurt, that to have this ad which will be fodder for school bullies. I hope my son does not have to see this face made at him in the following weeks at school.
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Give a rats about people’s allergies and food choices/issues. You’re too easily offended, and that’s half the problem with this industry. Flaccid, please-all campaigns where marketers and agencies have to be “aligned” to “move forward” into research with a room of numb-skull sandwich eaters and forget doing anything that’ll actually make people laugh/talk in the process.
Australians have a proud history of taking the piss out of whingers, because it’s FUNNY. Not everything is about YOU.
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Many seem to have missed the point that the ads are directed towards people who find soy milk intolerable and bad tasting. They are not attempting to convert those who love the taste of soy milk and swear by its supposed benefits.
tIn my personal opinion, this should be a space to discuss the advertising and media world via the stories and articles that appear. I consider these ads to be brilliantly conceived and executed, the comedic direction and theatrical integrity is of the highest standard. I believe that they work brilliantly at all levels.
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You’re much more polite than me Richard Moss! I was going to say “f*** off hippy and macramé yourself a bicycle” to all the boring posters who have missed the point of what Mumbrella is for.
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Do I choose to drink SOY MILK that contains soy beans or REAL MILK that contains Pus, faeces, blood, toxins…..mmmm tough choice!
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What’s the proposition here?
“There are people who willingly drink soy milk, despite the rubbish taste – they should be drinking normal milk instead.”???
Huh?
So – if they willingly drink soy milk, then clearly they wouldn’t have an issue with the taste, so the ad is not for them.
But – if they do have an issue with the taste, then there must be other reasons why they persist with drinking soy milk. So – why not tackle those issues?
Or – is it about the brand… What’s the brand again? Soy Face? I can’t recall.
I don’t get what the planning department was doing when this funny script landed. Laughing and ignoring the lack of strategic direction?
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I dislike most commercials, but this one makes me laugh out loud. Too funny, well done.
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What? The strategy for this is great. Public sentiment is turning against soy, and has been for the last 12 months. So Devondale just told the entire Australian population that the market leader in breakfast drinks , Up & Go, is secretly filled with the stuff, and that they should buy Fast Start instead. So, In an instant, they’ve de-positioned the category leader on health and taste credentials, and they did it in a way that makes me like their brand. Perfect. Credit where it’s due.
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Each to their own. Who cares if people drink soy, dairy, rice milk, almond milk or whatever else they can think up? Far out, I was fed goat’s milk as a baby because of allergies. Luckily I grew out of that. I wish I liked Up & Go but I personally don’t like the taste of soy. It’s the only thing stopping me buying it. I’m just glad there’s a dairy alternative. Should i say that dairy drinkers have been discriminated against for all these years because there wasn’t an alternative available for us? Give me a break. People just need to lighten up. Drink whatever you want and get over it. All these people who are offended by dairy drinkers should probably turn their efforts to something that really matters like homelessness, whaling, child abuse etc. It’s just a drink people, it’s not that big a deal!
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Planning guru is one of the few that has got it right, 100%.
Agree completely.
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Well done Planning Guru, finally someone sees the point of the add. I for one had no idea Up and Go had soy in it, but then again I never drink it because I don’t like the taste, now I know why! Great add, my friends and I killed ourselves laughing when we saw it, keep up the good work
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Ad’s funny, but can’t see the point? Soy milk drinkers aren’t going to switch to cow milk because of this, and cow drinkers are already drinking cow.
Seems as effective as an ad making fun of men who work in advertising, with the slogan “It’s not a real job”.
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It’s a funny ad, and makes me want to talk about it… problem is when I tell others about it, all I can remember is that it is for milk… not specifically the Devondale brand, yet alone the specific variety of milk that is being advertised. So it’s a great ad for MILK, not particularly a great ad for Devondale.
Simple enough strategy – rather than talk up its own product, it rubbishes a substitute… the typical strategy for election campaigns that we will no doubt see soon.
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Lighten up for crying out loud. Its cheeky and funny!!! Get a life you silly silly idiots being all serious
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Well said PlanningGuru!
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Pretty sure whoever made the ad should read this: http://aliveberry.com/2013/04/.....ilk-women/
I can personally say that soy has done wonders for my life and it is ridiculous to think that anyone can say otherwise. The main congratulations I give to soy is reducing my cholesterol, something that margarineeeeeee could not do!
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I never iron my shirts, sometimes I eat fish with ice coffee too!
I also think its funny how everyone acts around me when I’m naked
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It’s so funny how many comments are saying that Soy milk give men moobs!! Does it really? And if so, that could be their next campaign…
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Really funny ad! But then again, not all can drink milk, this ad is forgetting the fact that probably half of the population has lactose intolerance. So Devondale is just another milk products that won’t be put in their grocery list for sure.
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Sad to see how many simply thought Devondale’s ad was funny, hilarious, etc.
So many young kids drink soy milk not by choice, they may not even like the taste, however those who suffer severe, even life-threatening reactions, to dairy products, have no option. Surely it is enough that they often feel left out or different from their peers, Devondale has now offered up a means for soy milk to be seen as disgusting. Not hard to imagine what one mean spirited child could do with that information. The majority of kids prefer not to stand out from the crowd and this would not help.
Doesn’t say much for Devondale if the only way they can promote their product is to find fault with another and in such an insensitive way. All it has achieved with many is to no longer buy Devondale!
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What a stuff of un-ambiguity and preserveness of precious familiarity concerning unexpected emotions.
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I wonder if we would all be laughing if the next advert for “Mcwellknown brand”
shows the story of a child screwing up its nose and pulling faces as its parent gives it a carrot or brocoli…
but then…
We are treated to a wonderful picture of the child beaming happily as it scarfs down another mchealthburger.(TM).
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You’ve mostly missed the point – the ad is tailored to those who think soy milk tastes bad. Which is a lot of people. Nothing more, nothing less. We don’t need a history of dairy.
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It’s pretty clear to me that the point of the ads is not to convert soy drinkers to cow’s milk drinkers, but to steal market share by suggesting that most other ready-to-drink products are soy based and should be avoided.
I expect the target audience for this ad mostly doesn’t drink soy products at all and probably has no idea if it tastes good or bad.
I think the first ad (dad & daughter) is genius but the overwrought acting in the second one is cringeworthy enough that I hit the mute button when it comes on.
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A lot of people have posted that soy milk gives men boobs. Does that mean it will do the same for girls? I’ve gotta up my intake!!
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