Ok, this wont really make any sense or be of any interest unless like me you’ve been following the Leo Burnett work for Nando’s in Kuwait (two articles down).
Granted it sounds like an obscure one but it’s given me quite a few laughs along the way and I’ve grown some affection for this character ‘Fred’ that they’ve created (a chicken who has dedicated his life to becoming a Nando’s chicken).
Now, seeing as there is all this noise in the UK going on about how we treat chicken chickens…..
http://www.mirror.co.uk/news/topstories/2008/01/07/jamie-oliver-s-chicken-crusade-89520-20277197/
http://www.channel4.com/food/on-tv/jamie-oliver/jamies-fowl-dinners/
……the most recent video uploaded on to the Fred blog was quite attention grabbing:
I mean, they execute a brand character and then upload it…..that’s genius. Imagine if we started killing off these characters – first of all it would be very entertaining…but it’s also the most un-corporatey thing you could do. It goes against every single rule ever made about advertising……and that’s why this is great.
I guess it’s therefore important to try and understand why I liked this Fred the Chicken campaign. The answer really is because it seemed nothing like advertising which has never been more true than in its latest upload. How much respect would McDonald’s get if they did a drive by on Ronald, it would be answering the calls of the people. The difference being we all hate Ronald where people actually grew affectionate towards this Fred character. So there you have it, probably the first ever execution of a brand character and probably the last. Maybe it’s a bunch of ad people having a laugh with friends and a camera or maybe it’s a very clever way of breaching a new way of approaching a run of the mill chicken restaurant? Whatever the thinking behind it, I thoroughly enjoyed it…..almost gutted Fred is dead.
I’ll quit babbling about it now, just that I saw it this morning and felt it was quite extreme and different, but in a good and novel way.
Anton xxx
