The answer, increasingly, is to take the presentation of a product as heroic to humorous heights, praising it in an overly florid, overenthusiastic fashion with tongue planted firmly in cheek. The idea is to wink at the target audience, as if to say: “We know that you know this is an ad. We like our product and hope you’ll buy it, but we can all agree it’s not the cure for the common cold. So we’re pitching it in a way that will bring a smile to your face.”
The epitome of the new take on product-as-hero is the popular Old Spice campaign by Wieden Kennedy, dating from 2010, that is known as “Smell like a man, man” or “The man your man could smell like.” The confident spokesman is sincere, but his spiel is so comically over the top that it signals consumers that Old Spice is in on the joke.
Joining the ranks of product peddlers that portray themselves in superheroic fashion is Finlandia cheese, sold by the Finlandia Cheese unit of the Finnish company Valio, which is depicted in a new campaign as the pride of a “land of fine cheese,” Finlandia, “where cheese reigns.”
The campaign, now under way, plays up what it calls “the bold flavors and fine, natural ingredients of Finlandia cheese,” but does so in a broad manner reminiscent of the Monty Python school of humor, which takes the edge off the continuous praise of product attributes.
The stars of the campaign are mythical, mystical characters who seem as if they would be perfectly comfortable consorting with the denizens of the continents found on “Game of Thrones.” Each has a Pythonesque moniker like the Cheese Dunce, the Flavor Philosopher, the Cheese Masochist, the Flavor Caretaker, the Cheese Rogue, the Cheese Gladiator and the Cheese Watchman.
There is also a noble Cheese Warrior, who stands in front of a stone wall and is dressed in medieval garb. In one hand he carries a banner emblazoned with the Finlandia logo and the words “Where cheese reigns.” In the other hand he brandishes a sword that skewers a high pile of sliced Finlandia cheese.
The campaign, with a budget estimated at $3 million to $4 million, includes radio commercials, billboards, transit ads, posters on phone kiosks, signs in stores, sample giveaways, contests, a new Web site and a presence in social media like Facebook.
The campaign is being created by an agency in New York with an offbeat name of its own, Barton F. Graf 9000. The media duties for the campaign are being handled by MediaWorx in Shelton, Conn. A public relations agency, the Bender Hammerling Group in Montclair, N.J., is also working with Finlandia.
The campaign is the first significant effort to promote the Finlandia brand’s product line “in many years,” says Michelle Maxson, director for consumer marketing at Finlandia Cheese in Parsippany, N.J., and comes after conducting more than a year’s worth of research that found “people really love our cheese” but “our awareness is low.”
“There’s an opportunity to grow the brand through a comprehensive” campaign, she adds, particularly as the company is expanding from its signature Swiss cheese into other varieties like provolone, pepper jack and Cheddar.
(Some cheeses are imported from Finland and some are made in this country with the help of “our cheese masters,” Ms. Maxson says, who are brought over from Finland.)
Ilkka Nivari, president and chief executive of Finlandia Cheese, acknowledges how different the campaign’s approach is, and embraces it.
“I have to admit, there were some people saying, ‘Oh, this is not going to work,’ ” Mr. Nivari says.
However, “we had earlier come to the conclusion that if you look at cheese advertising in the United States, all over the world, it’s the same,” he adds, featuring cows or centered on “good taste.”
“We wanted to have something else,” Mr. Nivari says, “because we didn’t have the money” for a huge campaign that would increase awareness.
The result was to try taking a tack that would break through by being unusual for a food product.
Finlandia Cheese began looking for a creative agency in the summer of 2012, Ms. Maxson says, talking to “a lot of qualified companies.”
“Through this experience I realized how important the right partners are,” she adds, and Barton F. Graf 9000 “just had the passion we wanted to see.”
“They really understand what we were all about,” Ms. Maxson says, “and how much of an opportunity there was for this brand.”
Article source: http://www.nytimes.com/2013/05/06/business/ads-proclaim-hail-finlandia.html?partner=rss&emc=rss