McVities Finally Goes Mad And It’s Fantastic

I’ve written about the McVities “Sweeet” ads by Grey before. In sceptical tones, frankly.

But they’ve won me over, basically by doubling down on the crazy. Forget kitsch kittens and owls, what this campaign needed was a rocket-propelled flying squirrel and some 80s synth. Fun times.

In all honesty this was exactly where the campaign needed to go. Full-throated is always more convincing than half-hearted. And this is a film that, silliness aside, feels a lot more engaged than the previous work.

After all, it’s a campaign to launch a breakfast biscuit. I’m not totally sure what a breakfast biscuit is. But telling me it’s a thing that gives you energy and enthusiasm at the start of day – or more accurately, showing me – is exactly what you need to do to sell the idea.

I think there’s a tendency with these sorts of ads to be a little too polished. And the truth is you don’t want too much polish with something that is supposed to be fun and a bit cheeky. You don’t want to be ‘nice’. You want to be interesting.

Nice may be inoffensive. But it doesn’t excite – and it doesn’t make you want to share the news.

Great stuff Grey. You had me at “rocket-propelled flying squirrel”.

McVities Want You to Eat Adorable Animals

I’ve been struggling to come up with a good reason for why I’m not a fan of the McVities ads by Grey going around – the ones where the biscuits are imagined as cute animals and then get eaten.

Although writing that down, that’s a pretty good reason right there.

Obviously the campaign is intended to be a bit facetious, a bit silly. While I haven’t seen the brief created for that campaign, I doubt the objective listed was “reduce the fluffy kitten population”.

Even so, I’m just not sure what the thought process was behind it.

Perhaps it’s just considered to be part of building the brand. But it’s not that much of a good feelings campaign, it’s more tongue in cheek, more child-like.

Perhaps it’s to demonstrate the variety of products that McVities make. But the biscuits are hardly the stars of the ad. They may be centre stage but the attention is on the animals, save for the last second. That might be enough but I don’t think it really sends the right message.

That’s my issue with it in the end. It’s a product-centric ad where you hardly see the product.

(Although one argument I can make in its favour is that it’s clearly going to have some aim at kids, who have a different mentality and a different value set when it comes to asking for products. Perhaps in the end it’s just a kids’ ad that happens to be designed to appeal to adults a bit as well.)

On an unrelated note, I really think they should play more on the name McVities. Everyone knows that they make biscuits, but I always think it’s funny that McVities makes you make a crunching motion with your mouth. Just a thought.