AG Barr commercial director talks about new Irn Bru campaign
Jonathan Kemp, commercial director of AG Barr talks to The Drum about the new advertising campaign, following a preview screening of the advert.
Irn Bru advert press previews have always been big occasions, with lots of journalists and AG Barr staff buzzing around, waiting in anticipation for what is to come.
Last year, to preview the ‘High School Musical’ ad, the brand threw a party with cast and production crew present, for which The Drum stood nervously next to The Leith Agency’s creative director, Gerry Farrell, hoping beyond hope to like it.
Ahead of this advert, all The Drum has seen is the teaser press campaign which ran that morning, featuring a garishly blue coloured egg and the time that the advert would be broadcast – during the ad break for Hollyoaks.
For this new campaign, each journalist has been invited to a personal screening of the advert, which has been kept completely top secret by AG Barr.
Jonathan Kemp, commercial director at AG Barr joins The Drum for the screening in the small, private cinema, filled with differing coloured tweed cinema seats used for guests to watch films privately with their families.
Before the advert is screened, Kemp explains the brief; “It’s maybe a little more maverick than some of the ads that we’ve done over the last few years. We’ve had ‘If’ which was quite a patriotic ad, we had ‘High School Musical’, which was full of life and energy and fun, but much less maverick than what we have here and this maybe, is a little of a throwback to what we were doing in early 2000’s.”
Thirty seconds later and The Drum chuckles at the twist that slowly unknots…and feels slightly stupid for not having got it sooner.
Kemp then reruns the advert and talks The Drum through it. He’s clearly very proud of this one.
“Look at the sheep, he’s got Irn Bru boxer shorts on,” he highlights at one stage, pointing at the screen.
“It’s probably more in the vein of ‘The Snowman’ advert, maybe even a little bit stronger but I hope people enjoy it, I hope people talk about it and I hope it raises a smile,” Kemp explains before discussing what his exact brief was to The Leith Agency this year.
“The ‘Phenomenal’ campaign has been very successful for us. I wanted something which was going to revolve around that. I did also want to turn the ‘maverickness’ up a little bit and also have an advert that would work north and south of the border. Irn Bru has done very well in England and it was important that we could air this there. ‘High School Musical’ and ‘If’ don’t work at all in England. ‘The Snowman’ has worked very well, but those two haven’t. So the brief was very clear. Create a good Irn Bru advert for Scotland that will also work in England, which will build the brand character while also enforcing the ‘Phenomenal’ feeling.”
Asked about the secrecy behind this campaign, Kemp explains that he wanted people to experience the advert without prior expectation; “I want people to see it in all it’s glory and respond ‘wow, did I just see that?’ If the game gets given away, then that’s not going to happen, that’s why we’re sitting here talking today when the ad is out this evening, and the same is true of all the consumer press as well, as the last thing I want is people being told to see that ad, knowing what happens.”
The campaign will be extended beyond TV to online and in-store, which Kemp believes is a more important area for the product.
“It’s probably more important than using digital that shoppers can go in and see the product on the shelves, so we will be exploiting this through a lot of POS material and special promotions in-store. It’s all about bringing the whole campaign together. The marketing word is ‘holistic’ but I don’t like that word.”
The brand has had 160 years of advertising, and Kemp clearly believes that this is another element of a very strong history of marketing activity which will help build brand awareness in England.
“The important thing about Irn Bru is that, when selling into places like Newcastle, Manchester, Yorkshire, Leeds and the borders, there’s a lot more affinity with the brand, people enjoy carbonates more, and the sense of humour is much more similar. You head to London and it’s a very different type of society. It’s very difficult to get across what Irn Bru’s about in that region, but we’re going to start in the north and hopefully we’re going to work our way down.”
Check out the new advert on the Irn Bru website or see some of the previous ads below.