Intermarché and Ugliness as a Virtue

This is a slightly older campaign to talk about, but if you haven’t already heard about the Intermarché “Inglorious Fruits and Vegetables” campaign by Marcel in France, you should really check it out.

It’s a very simple idea at its heart: promote the sale of ugly vegetables, in order to save money and resources for Intermarché, and for its customers. The less appealing produce was sold alongside the standard fare – except clearly marked at 30% off the normal price. Obviously this was quite an easy sell in a way, as everyone wants to be thriftier in the current climate, and it appeals to our environmental side as well.

More to the point, it was a witty, fun campaign, and captured the imagination. The campaign ran with jokey slogans about the produce which underlined the fact that, ugly or not, this was still good food that doesn’t have to be wasted: “An ugly potato makes beautiful mash”.

Intermarché is an up-and-coming brand, a plucky outsider, and this helped establish it as a brand that cares for its customers. 13 million people saw the ads for free on social media, and it wasn’t just a viral phenomenon; sales have gone up 24% since the campaign began.

And think about it from an image point of view. Ugly may be ugly. But it also conveys honesty, straight talking, and trustworthiness. Think Oliver Cromwell and his portrait, warts and all.

Who wouldn’t trust the brand that places value and quality over skin deep, superficial prettiness?

It’s a genius bit of insight.

Strongbow is Selling Itself on the Basis of Quality and I am Confused

You may well have seen the spot by now. It’s no longer particularly new. A TV ad highlighting the seasonal nature of cider apple growing, and the care and attention that goes into making Strongbow cider.

And I’m confused. Because Strongbow isn’t known for quality. It’s known for being cheap, plentiful, and not particularly nice. There’s a reason people mix it with squash. And that it’s one of the main ingredients of snakebite. I have no beef with Strongbow. But it isn’t known for quality.

(Although interestingly in Australia Strongbow is branded as an English heritage product. Cutesy images of trees and apples and everything.)

The point is, there are other ciders, even mass market ones like Magners, which place their quality and care as a key selling point – and it’s believable because they are actually quite nice.

So why is Strongbow going down this route for its advertising? We can only assume that they feel a need to aim for a more mature audience.

After all, Strongbow ads have traditionally been very strong, playing on humour and funny scenarios – exactly the kind of thing to appeal to a younger class of drinker, who wants something cheap but also wants a brand that seems to understand and care about their sense of humour. But perhaps that market is under threat by own brand supermarket offerings, which are much cheaper and taste about the same. Advertising can only trump cost to a point.

That there is one of the most interesting market developments of the last few years. Many value range branded goods are suffering from the competition of cheaper supermarket-made alternatives.

(It’s probably worth an article of its own. I’ll have a think.)

But here’s the main point: if you see an advert that looks odd, seems unusual or out of tone for a brand, start thinking. Why is it there?

Quite often, the answers are more easy to reason out than you think.