Under the Influence with Terry O'Reilly - Cheeky Advertising

Episode Date: April 6, 2024

80% of all advertising is ignored. That’s why some advertisers employ cheeky advertising. It’s usually bold – outrageous – and sometimes even rude – but always with a playful undertone. We’ll talk about a fruit company that printed an open letter to the Pope. An airline campaign that told you to “keep it in your pants.” And a product that claims your grandparents had more sex than you.  Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Hi, it's Terry O'Reilly. As you may know, we've been producing a lot of bonus episodes while under the influences on hiatus. They're called the Beatleology Interviews, where I talk to people who knew the Beatles, work with them, love them, and the authors who write about them. Well, the Beatleology Interviews have become a hit, so we are spinning it out to be a standalone podcast series. You've already heard conversations with people like actors Mark Hamill, Malcolm McDowell, and Beatles confidant Astrid Kershaw. But coming up, I talk to May Pang, who dated John Lennon in the mid-70s. I talk to double fantasy guitarist Earl Slick, Apple Records creative director John Kosh. I'll be talking to Jan Hayworth,

who designed the Sgt. Pepper album cover. Very cool. And I'll talk to singer Dion, who is one of only five people still alive who were on the Sgt. Pepper cover. And two of those people were Beatles. The stories they tell are amazing. So thank you for making this series such a success. And please, do me a favor, follow the Beatleology interviews on your podcast app. You don't even have to be a huge Beatles fan, you just have to love storytelling. Subscribe now and don't miss a single beat. This is an Apostrophe podcast production. Your teeth look whiter than no nose. You're not you when you're hungry.

You're a good hand with all teeth. You're under the influence with Terry O'Reilly. The late, great Carl Weathers was a football player long before he became an actor. He signed on as a linebacker for the Oakland Raiders in 1970 and helped the team win their first AFC West division title. The next year, coach John Madden released Weathers, telling him he was too sensitive. Not long after, he landed a position with the BC Lions and played in the CFL until 1973. But Weathers harbored a secret ambition.

He wanted to use that sensitivity to become an actor. So in the off-season, he attended San Francisco State University and earned a bachelor's degree in drama. Carl Weathers retired from football in 1974 and began to chase his acting dream. He only managed to land small parts in a few TV shows and blaxploitation films. But the following year, in 1976, he heard about a new film that was looking to fill a major role. The movie was titled Rocky, and the part was to play the heavyweight champion of the world named Apollo Creed. The casting specs called for a black actor, great physical shape who was bold and brash. At 6'2", 220, Weathers fit the bill.

He was in superb physical shape, and his experience in professional sports had exposed him to lots of athletes with self-centered personalities. Now all he had to do was impress the director with his audition. When 28-year-old Carl Weathers entered the rocky audition room, he was introduced to the director, John Avildsen, and the writer. He was given a scene from the screenplay to perform. There was nobody to read lines with, so Weathers was told he would have to read with the writer. After he and the writer had finished the scene,

Weathers didn't think it went very well. Everybody in the room was quiet. There was a moment of awkwardness. That's when Weathers blurted out, I could do a lot better if he got me a real actor to work with. It was a cocky line coming from an unknown, inexperienced actor. What Weathers didn't know was that the writer was Sylvester Stallone, who also happened to be the star of the movie.

But Stallone wasn't insulted. As a matter of fact, Stallone felt the cheeky verbal jab was exactly what Apollo Creed would say. Weathers got the job. Looking back years later, Carl Weathers had to laugh. He said, sometimes it's the mistakes you make that get you the gig. The world of marketing has its cheeky moments too. Occasionally, advertisers dare to create subversive campaigns.

They're not just bold, they border on rude, but in a playful way. It's advertising brinksmanship. If done well, cheeky advertising can attract a lot of attention. Done badly, and it's a rocky road to recovery. You're under the influence. On National Beer Day, Miller Lite came up with a cheeky idea. Now, Miller Lite has always been positioned as a light beer with great taste, unlike many other light beers that give you less calories at the expense

of taste. And Miller Lite believes light beer shouldn't taste like water. So Miller created beer drops. Beer drops came in a small, squeezable bottle that worked like an eyedropper. The instructions were simple. If you were offered a watery light beer, just squeeze Miller Lite beer drops into the lesser brew to add the

irreplaceable taste of a fine pilsner. And in all the promos, Miller Lite showed its beer drops being squeezed into Michelob Lite Beer, one of its main competitors. It was an incredibly brash idea. The Miller Lite beer drops were sold online for $4.07 each, a nod to National Beer Day on April 7th, the fourth month, seventh day. And get this, they sold out in exactly one hour. The beer drops promotion netted over 500,000 media impressions, meaning the content was viewed or consumed 500,000 times. But it was more than a cheeky little idea.

The beer drops led Miller Lite to steal the most market share from its competitors than it had over the past three years. Until recently, WestJet owned an ultra-low-cost airline called Swoop. Apparently, it was named after WestJet's desire to swoop into the Canadian market with a low-cost airline alternative. When you are a low-cost entry in the market, you have to be bold in your marketing, because low cost also means low advertising budget. So Swoop came up with a cheeky ad that got a lot of press. The headline was, Keep it in your pants.

The ad went on to say, quote, Keep your money where it belongs, in your pocket. Take advantage of our keep-it-in-your-pants system-wide seat sale when you book before June 6th. The visuals showed a female backside with money sticking out of a back pocket, and there was a similar version with a male backside. The ads generated a lot of negative pushback on social media for being too sexually suggestive and inappropriate. Swoop Airlines responded by saying the keep-it-in-your-pants promotion was not meant to be offensive, but merely a little bit cheeky. As they say, timing is everything. News reports at the time noted the Keep It In Your Pants promotion launched just as parent company WestJet was in the midst of a court battle.

A flight attendant alleged they had been the victim of sexual harassment. As one observer said, the promotion seemed tone-deaf and had a lack of respect or a disregard to what was happening within the airline's own culture. Proving, cheeky is always chancy. Dole is one of the world's largest fruit producers.

While you may only think of bananas when you hear the Dole brand name, Dole provides over 300 different products, including apples. So on International Fruit Day, Dole did something very cheeky. It wrote an open letter to Pope Francis, asking the pontiff for his absolution for fruit after it was blamed for the original sin in the Bible. As the story goes, Adam and Eve ate the forbidden fruit and were thrown out of the Garden of Eden. So Dole published the open letter to his holiness in a leading Italian paper,

La Repubblica, the only newspaper the Pope ever reads. The letter went like this. With the greatest respect to your hallowed office, we think the time has finally come to address the over 2,000-year-old elephant in the room. The most catastrophic PR disaster that fruit has ever faced. The calamity of original sin. For too long, fruit has to finally rectify this slight. Then the letter used some logic in its argument.

It said the apple has been slandered most, even though it is never mentioned by name in the Bible. But rather, the classical Greek word for tree fruit conveniently sounded like the Latin word for apple, which in turn has come to symbolize evil.

Dole's letter said that instead of being thought of as the original sin, could it not be thought of as the original snack? Fruit, and apples in particular, is healthy, unlike other sinful indulgences like donuts, nachos, and curly fries. For these reasons and more, Dole humbly asked for the absolution that only the pontiff could offer. That one letter that ran in one newspaper for just one day resulted in 55 million media impressions

and 784 different news outlets did stories on the letter, earning the equivalent of $2.2 million in free media. Did the Pope respond? No. Did the cheeky letter succeed in making fruit the center of the conversation? Hell yes. The playoff beard has deep roots in the game of hockey. It is a time-honored superstition, and players dare not shave their beards during the playoffs

for fear of bringing bad luck to the team. It is believed the New York Islanders invented the playoff beard when the team won four consecutive Stanley Cups in the early 1980s. The players began growing beards during those playoffs, and other teams noticed. Four cups later, the superstition was cemented in the NHL and continues to this day. Now, the problem with playoff

beards is that they are kind of sexist. Millions of female hockey fans can't join in on the famous ritual. That's when hair removal brand Nair came up with a way for female fans to play along. Hairy legs.

The hashtag Nair playoff legs campaign was born. It encouraged women to show their support by not waxing or shaving their legs during the playoff run. Nair representatives said the brand has evolved to empower women to look and feel their best, and that body hair is a personal choice. But if women want to remove their leg hair after the playoffs, Nair was there.

That reminds me of a UK brand who wants to remind you that your parents are having more sex than you. The sexual wellness industry is poised to hit $64.3 billion globally by 2031. While the category often employs naughty advertising, some companies take it one notch further. A new direct-to-consumer company launched in the UK last Valentine's Day called Sexbrand.

Sexbrand has been running some cheeky billboards in downtown London recently. The launch billboard said, quote, Sex is dying. We're here to save it. The first product it debuted was a biodegradable condom called Second Skin, made of a fully sustainable rubber tucked inside fully recyclable foil packages. While the sex is dying billboard attracted some attention, the next billboards got a lot of attention. One said, your parents had more sex than you. And if that wasn't a wake-up call, the next billboard certainly was. It said, your grandparents had more sex than you. Might be shockingly true. Sexbrand maintains that people are having less sex these days than past generations. Because of the pressures of modern life, almost a quarter of 18 to 30-year-olds have not had sex in the last 12 months.

The company says sex is proven to combat depression, lessen anxiety, and boost confidence. So, Sexbrand is on a crusade to celebrate sex, to encourage young people to feel positive and excited about sex again. Even if your grandparents are enjoying more Humpty Dumpty than you. One brand that has been doing a lot of cheeky marketing lately is Heinz Ketchup. The condiment company has a history of doing good advertising, but it's gotten really good lately. One of the long-running boasts of Heinz is that it is the world's slowest-pouring ketchup

because it's thicker and richer. Cheap brands pour fast, as they are mostly water. Back in the 70s, Heinz produced a television campaign that showed various people waiting for the ketchup to slowly pour out of a Heinz bottle. Heinz ketchup. Think how good it's going to taste when it finally gets there. Anticipation. Heinz Ketchup. Think how good it's going to taste when it finally gets there. Set, of course, to Carly Simon's hit song, Anticipation. Voice-over courtesy of Casey Kasem. It's so good.

Well, Heinz is still having cheeky fun. Its longtime slogan is 57 varieties. So when the new Heinz.ca website was launched in 2021, it took a full 57 minutes to download, which was ridiculous and hilarious. But people willing to wait it out were rewarded for their patience by being invited to fill out a form for a free bottle of Heinz ketchup.

It was a gutsy Heinz move, as research shows that 40% of people will abandon a website that takes more than four seconds to load. Not long ago, Heinz created the world's slowest tweet. It was a message that contained 57 letters, naturally, that was being revealed one letter at a time over the course of 57 hours. If you guessed the tweet before it was fully revealed, you had a chance to win some fun merch. Heinz created the slowest puzzle on earth, and all 570 pieces were one color,

Heinz Red. And when Hollywood needs ketchup for a scene in a movie, it almost always chooses Heinz. That choice wasn't lost on the ketchup company, so the ketchup actually lobbied to become part

of the Actors Union. According to Heinz, its product has been part of memorable scenes in memorable movies, like When Harry Met Sally, Goodfellas, and Groundhog Day. The brand also recruited fans by asking them to post their favorite Heinz ketchup scenes from movies using the hashtag Make Heinz an Actor. In another very cheeky idea, Heinz released a fashion collection in collaboration with online resale platform ThredUp. Called the Heinz Vintage Drip Collection, it featured second-hand designer clothing, and each piece had a unique Heinz ketchup stain. The clothing featured brands like Calvin Klein, Gucci, Ralph Lauren, and Yves Saint Laurent.

It was Condiment Couture. The stained streetwear became one of the hottest trends at New York's Fashion Week. Other brands even got in on the action. Tide posted that if you wanted to keep your Heinz vintage drip clothing fresh, don't wash it with Tide. Burger King tweeted that it wouldn't be mad about a Heinz stain if it came from a whopper. The clothing line sold out online immediately, and all proceeds went to the non-profit organization Rise Against Hunger.

The cheeky vintage drip clothing generated 1.75 billion media impressions and over 800 news stories. And because it was all second-hand clothing, Heinz put the stain in sustainability. Not long ago, my wife heard a radio commercial on SiriusXM and asked me if I was familiar with it. I said no, so she tracked it down. The commercial was for a life insurance brokerage called Term Provider. It's an insurance brokerage that promises to find you the best rates

from the top insurance companies in America. Now, in order to stand out on radio, you need to be bolder than bold. Because commercial radio is often used as a background medium. It's on when you're doing something else. Advertisers need to be cheeky to poke through. So this company created a character called Big Lou. And if you're a 50 or 60 year old male, Big Lou is just like you. Do you have three ex-wives and your current trophy wife wants a life insurance policy three times the size of the policies you had to purchase for your previous mistakes? If so, you need to call Big Lou at Term Provider 800-276-1640.

Big Lou is intimately familiar with your problems. And if you're 50 or 60 years old and in reasonably good health, a $1 million policy should only cost about $100 to $200 per month. Big Lou may have a solution for your previous policies as well. You may even save enough money to lighten the load on your new $1 million policy. Remember, call Big Lou. He's like you, except he's only on number two. Okie dokie. The ads are using humor, and they take it right to the edge. Maybe over the edge. I noticed a lot of chatter online about these commercials. Some people loved them. Others thought they were crass and sexist. I even saw a Change.org online petition to remove Big Lou commercials from the air. I don't know how effective these shameless ads were in generating business for Term Provider,

but there's no doubt the ads attracted a lot of awareness for the company. Big Lou proves the golden advertising rule. When you push the envelope, you're going to get a lot of mail. While cannabis sales are legal in Canada, cannabis advertising is not.

So a chain of cannabis stores called Stoked asked their advertising agency called Angry Butterfly to figure out a cheeky way of getting a little attention. The resulting campaign was titled Next to Stoked.

The ad agency called it a quote legal-ish way of getting past the cannabis filters media channels employ to prohibit cannabis advertising. Stoked knocked on their next door neighbor's doors and asked if they could create a commercial advertising their wares. A nail salon next to one of the Stoked's stores said sure. So this ad was produced. Looking for the dopest nails in town? Whether you're feeling a hit of something blazing or more of a chill vibe,

we'd be happy to hook you up. Visit us at 2410 Kingston Road right beside Stoked Cannabis. Even though the ad is ostensibly for a nail salon, notice first the language the ad uses. Dopest, half-baked, chill vibe, happy to hook you up, etc. And of course, the address line that mentions it's next to Stoked. There was another ad for a neighboring bookstore. Find high-quality inspiration here at Cliffside Village Books,

next door to Stoked Cannabis. There were four other ads in the campaign. The covert cannabis ads managed to slip by Canadian media companies, radio stations, as well as the notoriously strict cannabis ad filters employed by Meta and TikTok. The campaign generated a 40% uptick in new customers. Stoked was stoked. I recently saw a stand-up comedian who said that every man in the audience has a health issue they hope will just go away. It's true, men are notorious for ignoring health issues and health messages. So one effective tactic is to use humor. Vancouver advertising agency Rethink, who also did a lot of the Heinz work, came up with an idea for Canada's Prostate Cancer Foundation in BC.

The task was to encourage men to get a prostate checkup. So Rethink created checkup briefs. As you may know, men's briefs have a Y-hole, or a fly for lack of a better term, on the front, so men can urinate without having to pull their underwear down. The check-up briefs had that too, but they also had the same access point on the back side, which made for a very amusing dual visual. Rethink said the rear door was designed to give doctors convenient access during the exam. It was also a humorous way to remind the public that prostate cancer is still the number one

diagnosed cancer among Canadian men. Men could receive a free pair of the checkup briefs by letting the Prostate Cancer Foundation know they've booked an exam by leaving a comment on its official Instagram page. The aim was to get men to feel more comfortable about learning and talking about prostate exams. The checkup briefs took Cheeky to a whole new level. Of the many definitions of the word cheeky, maybe the most salient is the defiance of convention or the absence of normal constraint.

That would explain the stories we told today. Normally, a fruit company would restrain from writing an open letter to the Pope. Designer clothing wouldn't be sold with ketchup stains. An airline wouldn't dare tell you to keep it in your pants. And a cannabis company wouldn't defy advertising rules by running covert ads. Usually, subversive advertising comes from smaller advertisers with tiny budgets. They need Cheeky to break through.

But Miller Lite is no small company. Neither is Dole or Heinz. Which is surprising, because the boldness of a statement is in adverse proportion to the number of people who have to approve it. Big companies are notorious for running safe advertising campaigns. Corporate blandification at its best. Yet a few large companies still manage to rattle the cages. It requires risk. Swoop and Big Lou took a lot of heat. And a sense of humor. Check-up briefs just make you laugh.

And the fact your grandparents made more whoopie than you just makes you cry. Sometimes that's what it takes to get noticed when you're under the influence. I'm Terry O'Reilly. This episode was recorded in the Terrastream Airstream Mobile Recording Studio Producer, Debbie O'Reilly Sound Engineer, Jeff Devine

Under the influence theme by Ari Posner and Ian Lefevre Tunes provided by APM Music Follow me on social at Terry O'Influence This podcast is powered by ACAST. And if you'd like to read next week's fun fact, just go to apostrophepodcasts.ca and follow the prompts. See you next week. Hi, this is Nina from Sudbury. Fun fact! One of the most frequently asked questions on the Nair website is, can I use Nair down there?