Countdown launches new campaign starring everyday kiwis via Ogilvy & Mather New Zealand
Countdown via Ogilvy & Mather New Zealand, has today launched a new series of advertisements featuring everyday Kiwis in their local supermarket, without scripts, actors, props or prompts.
The new series profiles a random selection of shoppers and reveals their straight up, honest opinions about why they choose to shop at Countdown, filmed in Auckland, Wellington, Christchurch and Invercargill.
Bridget Lamont, Countdown’s general manager marketing, says while it was new territory to back a campaign around impromptu filming, “we found some real gems in our shoppers’ off-the-cuff feedback.
“This is a completely new direction to what viewers will be used to seeing from Countdown. No talent auditions, no wardrobe or makeup – these are real Countdown customers in the local supermarket, from all different ages and stages in their lives.
“Supermarkets touch people’s lives every day, and customers look for completely different things in their shopping experience. Some people love to get in and out quickly; for others it’s the service, range or specials – or a combination of all three. And who better to hear from than like-minded real shoppers themselves.”
The first advertisements screen in the evening of 4 July with the tagline: Everyday, Everywhere, Everyone Likes to Shop Smarter.
Client: Countdown
Client: Bridget Lamont, General Manager Marketing
Agency: Ogilvy & Mather New Zealand
Greg Partington – Managing Director
Amy Dufty – Head of Client Service
Amanda Kabel – Head of TV
15 Comments
Countdown family just got out-real’d. That guys never gonna get a job now 🙁
Ok, so the Countdown family has gone. Fair enough. The idea was a rehash of the Anchor family and Oxo family before that. But at least there was an idea! What’s this? Real kiwi testimonials? Really? That was the best Countdown could come up with? I don’t blame Ogilvy. I’m sure Richard and Martin fought the good fight before they were reduced to this wallpaper. No, I blame Countdown’s marketing department. What were you thinking? Have you really deluded yourselves into thinking that this bland waste of space will do anything to enhance or differentiate your brand? That people will even notice this? The only thing that that shocks me more is that Ogilvy would choose to PR this.
Wow, you can’t get any more devoid of an idea than this.
Mystified is probably right.
Getting customers to call out the brief in a ‘real’ way, is the ultimate fallback position when you can’t find anything else the client will buy.
We used to call these vox pops. Like the 1940’s radio show of the same name.
en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vox_Populi
Oh dear. The Countdown family were cringingly embarrassing to watch but at least they provided some sort of reaction. This is like watching paint dry.
Up for pitch by Sep.
this is much more watchable and entertaining than the colemans
Ok, so you’ve left Ogilvy and got that off your hairless chest. But at least write some decent copy. Criticism is better delivered intelligibly sunshine.
“We found some real gems in our shoppers off-the-cuff feedback”
Shame you didn’t include any of them in the ads.
These might work their socks off. They might make lots of big numbers turn up on the bottoms of spreadsheets. They might make a certain kind of marketing brain fizz with delight.
But as an agency creative, they are kind of depressing. I really feel for the people who worked on them. Where’s the craft? Where’s the idea? Where’s the joy that comes from making things? If work this devoid of creativity is the future, copywriters, art directors and production company directors are going to be cut out of the loop, replaced by a straight line that runs from the client, via a bag-carrier, to a corporate video company. 100% rationality over emotion at every step of the process.
I don’t buy that these ads are warm and entertaining. They’re as cold as an accountant’s ruler. Is that what the industry wants? Because it overlooks something – humans aren’t 100% rational. That’s why you hired us irrational types in the first place, surely?
P.S. It’s “Every day”. Not “Everyday”.
Creative,
If you’re talking about the headline, then ‘everyday’ is correct. ‘Every day’ means each day. ‘Everyday’ means normal, common or garden of the type you might see every day.
‘Everyday Kiwis’ is right in the headline.
I sort-of agree with your other comments, but as has been pointed out, this is not a new and disturbing trend. Vox pop has been with us seemingly forever, as has boring work generally.
I was referring to the (unnecessarily capitalised) campaign line: Everyday, Everywhere, Everyone Likes to Shop Smarter.
Fair enough. I did not get all the way to the end line before falling asleep.
But as the line is only spoken and not written, it is hard to say definitively that he said ‘Everyday…’, rather than ‘Every day…’ with just a small pause.
This makes young AXIS school graduates want to get a job at a coffee stand…