Episode 58 - Corona Ad Reviewed by Global, Dunelm and Social Chain
This week’s episode of Advertisers Watching Ads features a beautifully cinematic clip filmed by Corona, all about the impact of plastic on our seas and their campaign to remove plastic and provide sustainable support to fishermen.
It’s not only an extremely timely and relevant topic, but it’s also a noble purpose and one that can benefit not just the brand, but also the world in general. So, did Corona make the most of the potential exposure from this ad or is it too difficult to connect to the rest of the brand’s social channels and creative content? Will it be great for them or not make enough of an impact?
To find out what our guests Charlene Williams (Regional Maintenance Executive, Global), Sneha Kansara (Senior Brand Manager - Charity & Social Purpose, Dunelm) and Pollyanna Ward (Head of Paid Social, Social Chain) thought about it, watch the full video.
Transcription
The following is an automated transcript of the file, which is not 100% accurate but will give you a good idea of what was discussed.
Tom Ollerton 0:00
Hello, and welcome to Advertisers Watching Ads. My name is Tom Ollerton. I'm the founder of Automated Creative, and this is a weekly show where brands watch other brands' ads and discuss what's good and bad about them. As ever, we are brought to you by our partner, Contagious, who have helped choose the ad this week. So thanks, guys, for consistently sending us very innovative campaigns for review. So, before we get to the ad, let's meet this week's guests.
Charlene Williams 0:26
Hi, I'm Charlene. I'm a Regional Maintenance Executive at Global.
Sneha Kansara 0:30
Hi, I'm Sneha. I look after Charity Partnerships and Social Purpose Campaigns at Dunelm.
Pollyanna Ward 0:35
And hi, I'm Pollyanna Ward, and I'm Head of Paid Social at Social Chain Agency.
Tom Ollerton 0:41
Right. Let's watch this week's ad.
Tom Ollerton 2:56
So Pollyanna, what was your reaction to that first time you saw it?
Pollyanna Ward 2:59
It was a really beautiful cinematic piece. And I'm not going to lie, I did think it was going to be a skincare ad or something. So at the beginning, there was lots of shaving and like, lots of like diving into the ocean about the sea. But no, my initial reaction was horribly similar to what I've seen other people sort of say on social, where it's positive, this is a good thing, even in the ad where they've said that, you know, companies should be helpful, brands should be helping us do better. So no, first thoughts were great.
Sneha Kansara 3:30
So I absolutely loved this campaign. I think as far as like purpose driven campaigns go, it very much ticks every box. You know, not only are they making a positive impact on the environment, they're helping local communities as they do it. And then there's kind of the long term benefits around setting up those additional revenue streams for, for the fishermen. I think it was, you know, lovely, and then it's all wrapped up in this gorgeous looking film, you know, with storytelling on point that kind of just left me feeling a bit warm and fuzzy and like I'd quite like to be sat on that beach with a Corona in hand. So, I think for me in very much ticked all the boxes.
Charlene Williams 4:08
It's such a heartwarming thing. It's just seeing real people and that their feelings. For brand, I definitely think it's something that it's good that they're doing. Corona seems to be really great at picking up on things and doing stuff that they've done like a "Wave of Waste" campaign before. So it's very much, they are very much in that space and wanting to do good and I just think it's great for other brands to see and potentially keep up and do as well. Just I think that's the great thing about it as well. But it was just lovely and heartwarming.
Pollyanna Ward 4:36
It was sort of two things: one, which was something that I was really, really like happy to see. I think the learnings there, that value exchange of, "Okay, you can clear up the sea and clear up the plastic and in return we'll pay you to do it." So there was that bit which I really enjoyed. I went on their socials there, you know all their channels, etc. And it's just absolutely nowhere. It just kind of felt like very much in its own little world that could have been spread a bit further. Maybe just calling out that isn't, isn't without scale, there's still won't be a lot of change. That was kind of where I was starting to edge towards.
Charlene Williams 5:13
I agree with that, because when I looked at it, I could only find like websites and stuff like that all apples in Mexico or Canada or South America only, like none of them will link like a UK website address or anything like that, or anywhere else. And it's kind of like, it is a shame, because it is such a good, like adverts, good film that should be seen by everyone.
Sneha Kansara 5:35
I think somewhere where they could have housed all of this, with kind of more content would have really like elevated the campaign even more. And actually, I think they could have been really ambitious. For me, it feels like this is a story that would, you know, could even work as long form content. You know, in the same way that you know, other brands could, you know, create content around it that could be on Netflix. I could see this as a documentary on Netflix. I think it's a beautiful piece of storytelling. And you know, they could probably be a bit more ambitious with, with how they released it to the world.
Tom Ollerton 6:10
How can we be sure that this is actually making a benefit to the world and not just a benefit to Corona?
Sneha Kansara 6:15
It felt like it, mind the pun, but they were kind of testing the water with it. You know, it was kind of the first, the first of its kind. And actually, if it's got legs, they're gonna roll it out. I think if you look at it on the merits of the fact that they've removed three tons of plastic from the ocean, you know, that in itself feels commendable. And absolutely, it should be something that should be rolled out. And, you know, I'd like to think that the agency looking into it are talking to other businesses, and seeing, met, you know, and governments in Mexico and other places, to see whether this could be something that could be kind of, you know, made into a bigger, bigger thing. And I think it's really timely issue, when you look at you know, documentaries, like Seaspiracy where they're talking about, like how few fish there are in the oceans. This is, you know, the timing of this is just absolutely spot on. So I really hope that they are kind of amplifying it across all of the various organizations that, that need to be kind of touching on to do that.
Tom Ollerton 7:14
So Pollyanna, what should the industry be taken away from this? What will you be telling your clients?
Pollyanna Ward 7:19
I mean, I do think it's that brands are sort of facilitators. Like brands aren't the answer. Whilst I think the benefits of a value exchange are, yes, the brand needs to benefit because brands do have to ultimately make money. But if in the process of doing that, they can help solve a problem. And then you know, the fishermen are getting compensated, so everyone's sort of benefiting from this. It's so much harder for brands to go and tell, like every single person on the planet, like, "Please recycle your bottles." It's a lot easier, in the, if you sort of zoom out a little bit, it's a lot easier for a brand like Corona to do three tons in a day than it is to get lots of people to remember to put their bottle in a recycling bank. Just making sure that it has actually got a bit of a value exchange, not just we're going to tell you that we're doing lots of things, and it's just lip service, this does actually feel like they're walking the walk.
Tom Ollerton 8:14
How about you, Charlene? If you were the creative director on this, what would you like to have seen done differently? What would have made this better?
Charlene Williams 8:20
Overall, the ad is brilliant. And I think it taps into a human conscious. And I think, as a brand, that's what you would want. Like, as Pollyanna said, You can't force people to recycle, you can't force people to do good. But if you can tap into their human conscious, and just kind of pop the little idea that, "Oh, maybe I should recycle that by the Corona I've had afterwards." If I was, if I was adding certain parameters, the creative team right now, that's the only thing I would have criticized and saying, "Why have we not made this as much more widespread as possible?"
Sneha Kansara 8:54
I think they definitely, if you're going to put out a campaign like this, you you need to make sure that you've kind of got some serious sustainability credentials behind yourself as a brand. When I was doing like, I guess when I was researching about the campaign, I found that they are, I think they're the first beverage company to claim to be net zero plastic. So they retrieve more plastic from the environment, then they, then they, I guess, generate. I think what was quite interesting is they, they clearly made that, they clearly went far enough to make a claim about, what we can claim to be net zero plastic prior to launching this campaign because I think they launched about a month or two ago. And I think that's really smart, because they can kind of you know, hang their hat on that before releasing this. And I think if you're gonna go out there, you need to make sure you can substantiate some of your claims like that.
Tom Ollerton 9:43
Unfortunately, we've come to the end of the show. What I'm going to get you to do now is to vote on how good you thought this ad was on a scale of one to five using your fingers. So, one, two, three... Two fives, is that a four? Well, I think that is probably the highest going ad we've ever had on Advertisers Watching Ads. So, Pollyanna Charlene Sneha, thank you so much. We'll see you all next week.
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