Years ago there was a terrific TV campaign starring Leonard Rossiter and Joan Collins.
It was very funny, it was very popular with the public, and it won every award going.
Rossiter was snooty and pretentious, Joan was attractive and aloof.
Each ad featured pretty much the same gag.
Leonard Rossiter would somehow spill his Martini on Joan Collins.
The first ad had her asking him the time.
Then in another, he accidentally knocked back her airline seat.
Then a group of Japanese businessmen misinterpreted his actions.
The campaign ran for years with the formula unchanged.
Stylish, aspirational, jet-set locations, Rossiter repeating that Martini was made from “11 herbs and spices”.
All the brand values were perfectly on target for the audience.
Decades later people still love that Martini campaign.
There’s just one problem.
It wasn’t for Martini.
It was for Martini’s main competitor, Cinzano.
Martini was the market leader, Cinzano was the challenger brand.
And funny as the ads were, they weren’t very well branded.
So the ads are remembered as being for the market leader.
Cinzano was doing Martini’s job for them.
Because they confused ‘brand’ and ‘branding’,
‘Brand’ is when you get the brand values right.
The thinking goes that the brand values are unique to your brand, so if people love your advertising they will buy your brand, even if they don’t remember the name.
‘Branding’ is when you don’t own the market.
You have to make it very clear that this advertising is definitely not for the brand leader, it’s for the challenger brand.
That’s why ‘branding’ is crucial.
‘Branding’ means embedding the name of the product in the consumer’s mind.
Simply selling a category generic is doing the market leader’s job for them.
Like Cinzano did for Martini.
Let me be clear, I love the Martini (sorry Cinzano) advertising.
All it needed was branding: a mnemonic.
So the campaign would be remembered as Cinzano not Martini.
Otherwise all that hard work in creating a terrific campaign that the consumer loves is wasted.
Because people remember it as a campaign for whoever has the highest profile.
That’s what the human mind does.
It defaults to whatever is the most salient, whoever owns the category.
In this case the category was owned by Martini.
So Cinzano did a wonderful campaign but, because they didn’t embed the brand name, the competitor benefits.
Campaigns like this work for advertising people, who pay attention to every detail of every ad that runs.
But they don’t work amongst the public, who generally couldn’t care less.
So with Cinzano, they did all the hard work of great advertising that people actually love and remember.
But they didn’t want to mess it up with a mnemonic that would make people remember Cinzano instead of Martini.
They were doing ‘brand’ instead of ‘branding’.
Interesting. I stopped reading when you wrote Martini. I knew it wasn’t Martini because “Any time any place anywhere, there’s a wonderful taste you can share, it’s the right one, it’s the bright one, it’s Martini” (and that came direct from my memory without looking anything up) Great job! But when I asked myself what the name of the other brand was, my mind went blank.
I know it’s a cliché but “If you cover the logo, would you know what brand the ad is for?” is so true.
I wasn’t around when those ads were made but watched them on YouTube and new exactly the ones you meant when you mentioned that pair (but couldn’t remember the brand!)
The opposite for me is the cool whip ads that shove it down people’s throats, or the way that American radio ads always say the brand name three times successively at the end. Cool whip’s OK but the radio ones just too annoying.
If you pulled the logo off most cars and ask the public to guess the name I recon no one would guess 100% correct. There’s so little that’s distinctive about them and worse still sooo little between the advertising. . take a bunch of young people sit them in the car and ad a pop song over the top, job done. Sad times.
Could someone explain what they should have done differently? The brand is mentioned in every ad, the ingredients are listed and the logo is shown at the end. I appreciate that Martini is\was the brand leader, but I don’t understand how the Cinzano ads should have been shot. Could someone explain? Many thanks. James
James,
It’s not a question of anything but memory.
They didn’t need to shoot the ads differently at all, just use a mnemonic (an aid to memory).
For instance: Joan Collins might say “Chin chin” (a posher version of ‘Cheers’) then Leonard Rossiter would correct her saying “Cinzano”.
And at the end the strapline over the packshot could be “Chin Chin – Cinzano”
None of that would spoil the ad, but it does mean you couldn’t remember it as “Chin chin Martini”
So the ads would be doing brand share not market growth.
bang on dave. i am old enough to remember those ads. great casting. i remember getting some bad advice that I shouldn’t mention Budweiser in my Budweiser ads because that would somehow make them less cool. i just thought it was necessary story information. it helped everybody out!
Were these films from CDP a course correction?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PirMZGL-0mQ
Neither Leonard nor Joan ever mention Martini in any of them.
Vinny,
The great mnemonic for Budweiser always was “Bud”.
So you did “Watching the game, having a Bud” as your branding.
(Although, as brand leader in beer, branding was way less important – when beer sales go up, Bud sales go up most)
Ah, ok. I get it now, thanks for explaining. This stuff fascinates me. I’m not in the business at all, just interested.
ha. glad you picked up on that Dave. i remember one of the cast members on set questioning the term “having a Bud”. I only then realized it was an unwitting Irish/UK thing i’d added. ‘Having’ a pint etc. but it sounded good when he said it. so that’s what it was. And ‘Bud’ means ‘pal’ in American. i always found that funny.
Interesting to read all the banter that this subject has grown up.
Still like your Knirps mnemonic.
Interesting.
I was a kid when those ads ran and I’ve always viewed them a favourite. My mum and her mates all drank Cinzano. Have always recalled them as for Cinzano: “So fused with herbs and spices from four continents” and other product details, packs shots, Rossiter and others mentioning the brand repeatedly ( he even “chin chins” in the ski lodge spot), V/O and visual branding at the end….meanwhile Martini had that song and glamour that played far more on aspirations.
Seemed a strong campaign to me. So didn’t the Cinzano campaign improve sales?
I too remember these adds, and also thought it was Martini until you said Chinzano. Martini had the strapline “Any place anywhere…” It was the cheesy song that embedded the Martini strapline in my mind.
Dave in your opinion which is more powerful, a spoken strapline or a sung strapline?