Pedigree & Brizza create an inedible flip flop plus...5 more campaigns that dismay an antagonist.
Sometimes putting people off can be a great way to communicate the benefits of your product or in the case of Inedible Flip Flops help save the lives of valued pets. Here are a bunch of campaigns that all in some way deliberately deterred an audience group - be it furry or human - to get their point across.
Inedible Flip Flop | Pedigree & Brizza | Mirum Brazil | 2023
Sometimes it's cruel to be kind. While dogs chewing on rubber footwear is an internet staple and almost a rite of passage for any puppy, there is a dark side. Chewing on rubber footwear poses a serious health risk to dogs, requiring frequent surgeries for foreign object removal. To address this problem, Mirum Brazil, in collaboration with Brizza and PEDIGREE, developed the Inedible Flip-Flop which incorporates denatonium benzoate, the strongest bittering agent, making it unappealing to dogs while remaining safe for them to explore. This compound is commonly used in the pet industry to discourage biting and licking behaviors, plus to train dogs to avoid certain items. With its innovative design and bitter taste, the Inedible Flip-Flop aims to keep pet dogs healthy by dismaying them from one of their favourite activities while catering to the Brazilian love for flip-flops.
Work Happy | HP | Wieden + Kennedy | 2022
Succeeding at work used to mean making sacrifices. To highlight how things have changed with the use of modern technology – and their products – HP developed a campaign that showed the contrast between what old-school businesspeople think and how modern workers actually succeed. By showing how HP’s products have helped people fix their work/life balance, they also show how the brand has helped to defeat the old school - stuck in his ways - businessman’s ideology.
Ice Cream For Adults | Halo Top | 72andSunny | 2019
At around 300 calories a pint, Halo have created an ice cream that can be eaten as much as you like. Such a guilt-free treat is exactly what grownups deserve to help them get through the indignities of modern adult life. This is the premise behind this darkly comic campaign which is fronted by a deadpan ice cream man who refuses to give Halo ice cream to kids who walk up to his truck because they ‘don’t deserve it’. In this manner, he is acting as a Threshold Guardian who sets the rules of entry for the brand so that only young adults [the target audience] get to enjoy it.
The Foolitzer Prizes | E-Farsas | Leo Burnett | 2019
Fake news spreads fast and unfortunately, there’s plenty of it out there. In Brazil, the issue of fake news has devastating effects so E-Farsas and Leo Burnett acted to give the fake news sites exactly what they don’t want – the spotlight on them. The creation of the Foolitzer prizes shines the spotlight on the very worse perpetrators of fake news. Calling out the villains directly. The ad has all the nods to traditional glossy awards but is peppered with sinister undertones that highlight something is not right. The ‘winners’ names were then spread around the country using a variety of media to get the news to as many Brazilians as possible. Unsurprisingly, none of the winners were happy to accept their awards.
The Greatest Recruit | Link | Part-Time Lab | 2017
Thousands of people defect from North Korea every year. A spoof job ad showcased the thousands of employment opportunities that these defectors left behind them. The Greatest Recruit campaign showed these job ads alongside a LinkedIn profile of Kim Jong-Un featuring many tropes of genuine job ads but with a slant that highlighted the reality of living under the regime. The campaign eventually clicked through to Liberty in North Korea, which helps North Korean defectors. By using comedy to highlight the reality of their antagonist, a charity was able to direct people to help those who had escaped the regime.
Laughing Horses | Volkswagen | Grabarz & Partner | 2017
Ever tried to reverse park with a horse trailer? It can – as millions of Germans know – be a disastrous and very embarrassing experience. In fact, it can turn you into a bit of a laughing stock. Unless you have a Volkswagen Tiguan with Trailer Assist, in which case you’ll be fine. This is the fantastic premise of this campaign which reveals a bunch of horses in a field almost dying of laughter. The source of their amusement is a man trying to back his trailer into a parking space. He fails miserably several times much to the horses’ delight. But the next time, the driver comes armed with Trailer Assist and he steers his trailer effortlessly into the parking space. This dismays the horses and leaves them dumbfounded. Wonderful.
