hunt's pork & beans new tv spot

i thought i saw a new tv spot for hunt's pork and beans the other day. can't remember too much what the ad said but the over-all impression i got was that it was a more logical commercial than the one discussed here earlier. i was not paying attention to it too much, but i think the story is there's a new hero or something in the house and it's hunt's pork & beans. saw the ad only once and i have yet to see it again. (low media weights?)

i still saw the pork & beans on rice visual and also the pork & beans in sandwich visual. i'm not sure if it's exactly the same shot as the ones used in the "rice vs bread" tv spot, but it did look very similar.

i wonder if this tv spot is an attempt to correct their previous mistake? if they used the same product on rice and product on bread visuals, it's obvious this new ad is meant to correct the previous mistake as it means they re-edited the material that's already in the can and shot new scenes for the brand new story.

it's no longer that crazy "there is no more rice" lead in to the story. this is a straight sell on the use of the product both with rice and bread without any of the screwed up logic.

would love to see this tv spot again and even post it here. anyone seen this ad?

URC's hunt's pork & beans ridiculous use of a "consumer insight" : part 4

i've been wondering about it and this is pure speculation on my part (or if this was a report done by an account manager, it is called "competitive ad analysis") - why did URC's hunt's pork & beans rice vs bread tv ad suffer a fatal flaw?

the concept of that tv ad begins with the idea of rice not being available, then makes a sale on hunt's pork & beans can be enjoyed not only with rice but also with bread. we will no longer go into discussing the logic, actually the absence of logic or even common sense in the way the copy was written (discussed fully in this post : http://the-wawam-file.blogspot.com/2008/06/hunts-pork-beans-tv-ad-you-said-what.html), but will stay on why and how the tv ad used the "no more rice" idea as a take-off point. we will center the discussion on that point.

my conclusion is this, but if you find it hilarious and ridiculous go ahead and find it that way, because i think that is exactly what it is - this tv ad wanted to exploit the true to life crisis the country is facing - the rice crisis, or specifically the rice shortage in this country. they opened the commercial that way to grab the attention of the audience. given the peculating attitude among the audience, it's a powerful opening.

as far as that is concerned, it actually worked! as i have written in the previous post, this ad immediately caught my attention after the first sentence of the audio - "mom, there is no more rice." the rice shortage is in everybody's mind. unfortunately, after that sentence, i started laughing and totally tuned off from the commercial after the third sentence. because from that time on, i found the ad didn't make sense at all.

the "no more rice idea" i think is actually being used in this ad as a "consumer insight" and the set up for the ad. and that is where all the problems of the ad began.

in the first place, "no more rice" is not a consumer insight, it's a consumer finding on attitude, concern or fear. as written in the "anti-WAWAM!"section, any consumer finding will first need to be transformed into something else to make it into a consumer insight. that was not done here.

the second problem and this is as fatal as the first one, is that the "no more rice" idea is so far removed from the product sale for hunt's pork & beans that it is an almost alien idea. in other words it's actually unusable in this ad. putting that unusable idea eventually harmed the commercial.

using the "no more rice" idea created so many problems in the delivery of the sale for the ad. the creatives were so adamant at using this idea that they forced it into the commercial like pushing a square peg into a round hole, resulting to a warped sense of logic.

using it meant they had to go take a round about logic to make sure they will not alienate a large part of their consumers who eat the product with rice. saying the product can also be enjoyed with bread is good, but with the opening of the ad with the "no more rice" kine, to complete the "logic", the delivery of the message resulted gaping holes in the presentation of the thought.

the problem of this commercial, it's fatal flaw, is in the use of a consumer insight that is actually not an insight, but just a powerful consumer concern and one that does not lend itself to making a sale for the brand's proposition.

in other words, it's a ridiculous use of a "consumer insight". or as what we call it here, it's a WAWAM!

hunt's pork & beans previous ad campaign : part 3

picked up these ads from the URC website. they look like the previous ad campaign they ran before the current tv on air "rice vs bread" campaign. based on these ads, they positioned hunt's pork & beans on a nutrition platform, building kids' intelligence on performance in school.

is the current "rice vs hamburger" tv ad a better one than this one? that's next in WAWAM!

hunt's pork & beans tv ad - huh? ano daw sabi??? : part 1

unfortunately this tv commercial is not available in the internet. but i feel the urgent and desperate need even to talk about it. i think this ad was first aired just over the weekend.

the commercial opens with a young boy going to the rice cooker, opens it, looks inside, then talks to his mom off camera, saying something like "there is no more rice".

split second reaction, i thought, hmm a commercial for rice? since when did anyone advertise rice? or a rice substitute?

then, the camera cuts to some food preparation and the copy says something like "it's ok if t here's no rice, there is hunt's pork and beans and rice". (shows a food shot of hunt's pork & beans over rice.) then cut to another food preparation, mom voice over says something like "you can eat hunt's pork & beans with bread". (shows a food prep of hunts pork & beans inside a hamburger bun.)

what the hell was that? right after the third line of the ad, i start laughing and tune off for the rest of the commercial!

where in the world is the logic in that tv commercial? first line is "there is no more rice" and the immediate answer to that is "it's ok, there is hunt's pork & beans and rice"??? the boy wanted rice and he was asking the mother what he will do since they have ran out of rice. and that is the answer of the mom? how did that the mom's statement answer the boy's line? it does not make sense! to begin with i thought there is no more rice?

and then the second line doesn't make sense either, "you can enjoy hunt's pork & beans with bread".

i think the point they wanted to make here is that it's ok to run out of rice, you can eat hunt's pork & beans in many ways, not just with rice but also with bread.

but this idea was presented in a very confused and misleading way, it felt like there were missing scenes in the ad, either before the commercial started or scenes after the line of the boy. there is a huge logic gap in there! the logic gap is so huge that i am shocked nobody noticed it.

commercials first and foremost must make sense if not logical. sometimes we get ads that are very creative and incredible that they are not really logical in terms of understanding reality. but they are presented in a logical way that we can accept.

like the coke "angel' commercial, it's a fantasy and therefore not literally logical in our real world, but the premise and story of the ad is presented in a sensible and logical manner. even when it tries to be very creative and out of the box, logic and sense is a very basic and fundamental need in any commercial.

this hunt's tv commercial does not even try to make sense or to be logical. i think i know what happened here. and my guess is it's the client's fault.

i think one of the objectives of the storyboard is to encourage extended usage by telling the audience that hunt's pork & beans can be enjoyed even with bread other than the traditional way of eating it with rice.

they probably shot the commercial using a storyboard that had that storyline. with the lines and visuals in this sequence:

boy: there is no more rice.
mom: it's ok even if we don't have rice, you can enjoy it with bread
(visual of hunt's pork & beans and bread)
mom: it's as good as eating it with rice (shows visual of hunt's pork & beans on rice)

my guess is at post production approval stage, one of the clients, probably the president, a very logical person, objected to the shot commercial. this client was afraid that with the shot storyboard (my own versions of the lines, above), they run the risk of alienating their current users whose eating habit is to eat the product with rice. the president was afraid that there was too much emphasis on eating the product with bread that it will turn off a very large chunk of their current franchise who has the established habit of eating it with rice. and that will mean they will lose market share.

their solution? they inserted the hunt's pork & beans shot and line before the bread visual. but what they forgot to check was - did the audio make sense, was the story being presented logical?

someone in the agency got scared and did not challenge the client. someone forgot to ask about making sense and being logical. if this wasn't the client's fault, who is the ad agency of this brand?

this hunt's pork & beans "rice" tv ad? it's a WAWAM!

more on this WAWAM! ad in the next post...