On the eve of the Xfactor’s first live show, advertising space was at a premium, and two yoghurt companies went head to head in airing two very different adverts.
The German company Muller was up against the West Country’s Yeo Valley. Now maybe I’m biased because my home town is in Somerset, where the Yeo Valley sits, and I did work for them one summer packing yoghurts! Okay so I’m very biased…but how good was their advert?!
The farmer boy band, ‘The Churned’, singing about their care for nature and love for their cows was no surprise after seeing them rap in the previous year, but this is perhaps why it kept people all over the country strapped to their seats for the entirety of their new 2 minute ad.
The Muller advert took a very different approach. My first reaction was to turn to my friend and say, bet they spent so much on that! They did. The second thing I said was…that was kind of...random? The advert without question had worked, as immediately we were discussing it! And we continued to do so even when Xfactor was back on - I think we were talking over Johnny who appeared to be dressed up in tin foil. But we weren’t singing its praises as we had done so with the Yeo Valley ad, instead we were confused.
We had just seen Kit from Knight Rider speed down the street to handbrake turn neatly into a tight space, only to receive a parking ticket for his trouble. A pretty cool opening, but then came into play some sort of Muller machine, Yogi Bear, multiple Mr Men and Mutley from Wacky Races - who else were you expecting?!
All of the components within the advert didn’t appear to have any link with each other, and nor did they have any link with the brand. The tag line at the end, ‘Wunderful Stuff’ perhaps should have read, ‘Blindfolded Pick N Mix’.
Having said all this, the advert was highly attractive with a brilliant use of colours, but I just feel like it wasn’t thought through. I can’t help but imagine the pitch for the ad with someone piping up and saying, “Well…I like yogi bear, can we fit him into it somehow?”
So what have the companies achieved?
Yeo Valley Muller
YouTube views 327, 113 217, 192
Likes on Facebook 23, 203 22, 141
Money spent on campaign £5 million £20 million
The two companies have seen thousands of hits on Facebook; Yeo Valley on the other hand has recieved significantly more YouTube views for their advert. And at a quarter of the price of the Muller campaign!
There have been mixed reviews on YouTube:
‘Yeo Valley 1 Muller 0’
‘has anyone worked out what this ad is about yet?’
‘Quite simply the best ad ever.’
‘rubbish ad’
For me, the Muller ad was superficial, trying to appeal to the audience by chucking together as many nostalgic characters as possible. Not even the best ones! Where were the Biker Mice from Mars, Sonic the Hedgehog and The Snorks?!
Yeo Valley, on the other hand, had fun with a tongue-in-cheek portrayal of boy bands, all the time being relevant to their brand with lyrics about their organic produce.
“So listen up people, take after me…
Be a little funky, choose the West Countryyyy!”
..it’s catchy too
