alps
12-16-2006, 06:35 PM
Dairy Farmers give the heave-ho to cheese ad's screaming granny
TV spots seen in poor taste; Cossette may lose contract
KEITH MCARTHUR
MARKETING REPORTER
Canada's dairy farmers have killed their controversial "Stop Cooking with Cheese" campaign, saying the latest TV spot crossed the limits of good taste.
Cossette Communication Group Inc., the agency responsible for the work, must now compete against other agencies for a chance to retain the account.
"We track everything we hear from the consumer. And sometimes you cross a line that maybe you should not," said Nathalie Noël, director of marketing for the Dairy Farmers of Canada.
The marketing association will not go ahead with a planned spring rollout of the campaign. Instead it is looking for an agency that can take cheese marketing in a new direction.
The initial campaign used crude reverse psychology to convince parents that the best way to get their adult children to move away from home is to not cook with cheese. Each commercial features a grumpy old lady who screams: "Stop Cooking with Cheese!"
In the latest ad -- titled "Protection" -- parents sit down with their daughter's boyfriend to convince him that their daughter isn't good enough for him.
"How can I put this nicely? She's cheap," the father says. The daughter retorts: "I hate you."
Then the pitch-granny chimes in: "Can't stop your daughter's boyfriend coming over? Stop cooking with cheese. Don't melt gouda on his vegetables -- he'll never dump her."
Ms. Noël said she didn't expect the backlash that came both from consumers and dairy farmers, who saw the last ad as mean-spirited and anti-family.
"I think in the present time people are struggling with family values. It's something important for Canadians. And I think they feel that we were shaking that a little bit too much," she said.
Ms. Noël said a committee of dairy farmers made the decision to pull the campaign.
"Our organization is a farmer-based organization. We have to consider what they have to say," she said.
Nancy Vonk, creative director at Ogilvy and Mather in Toronto, said she winced when she saw the ad for the first time.
"It was really mean-spirited," she said. "I'm a big fan of dark comedy but that just crossed the line. . . . I felt so bad for the girl in the spot."
She said the reverse psychology approach -- trying to sell more cheese by telling people not to buy it -- was a bold attempt to do something different, but didn't work in practice.
"The whole shtick with the old lady yelling at you to stop cooking with cheese. It's like: 'Shut up. Get out of my face.' " Cossette executives declined to comment on the controversy.
However, Ms. Noël said Cossette is pitching to keep the business.
Cossette works for the Dairy Farmers on both the butter and cheese accounts. But the marketing association has made a decision not to advertise butter next year, so only the cheese portion of the account is up for review.
It is unusual for an incumbent agency to hold on to an account when it is put up for review.
Ms. Noël said the Dairy Farmers will announce a short list next week. Before then it would be inappropriate to say if Cossette is in the running, she said.
Cossette also markets cheese for Quebec's dairy producers, using a different campaign. Cossette does not appear to be in danger of losing the French account.
In addition, the milk marketing campaigns, which are done by different agencies in different parts of Canada, are not affected by the review.
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This is from today's Globe and Mail. :koko: :shrug:
TV spots seen in poor taste; Cossette may lose contract
KEITH MCARTHUR
MARKETING REPORTER
Canada's dairy farmers have killed their controversial "Stop Cooking with Cheese" campaign, saying the latest TV spot crossed the limits of good taste.
Cossette Communication Group Inc., the agency responsible for the work, must now compete against other agencies for a chance to retain the account.
"We track everything we hear from the consumer. And sometimes you cross a line that maybe you should not," said Nathalie Noël, director of marketing for the Dairy Farmers of Canada.
The marketing association will not go ahead with a planned spring rollout of the campaign. Instead it is looking for an agency that can take cheese marketing in a new direction.
The initial campaign used crude reverse psychology to convince parents that the best way to get their adult children to move away from home is to not cook with cheese. Each commercial features a grumpy old lady who screams: "Stop Cooking with Cheese!"
In the latest ad -- titled "Protection" -- parents sit down with their daughter's boyfriend to convince him that their daughter isn't good enough for him.
"How can I put this nicely? She's cheap," the father says. The daughter retorts: "I hate you."
Then the pitch-granny chimes in: "Can't stop your daughter's boyfriend coming over? Stop cooking with cheese. Don't melt gouda on his vegetables -- he'll never dump her."
Ms. Noël said she didn't expect the backlash that came both from consumers and dairy farmers, who saw the last ad as mean-spirited and anti-family.
"I think in the present time people are struggling with family values. It's something important for Canadians. And I think they feel that we were shaking that a little bit too much," she said.
Ms. Noël said a committee of dairy farmers made the decision to pull the campaign.
"Our organization is a farmer-based organization. We have to consider what they have to say," she said.
Nancy Vonk, creative director at Ogilvy and Mather in Toronto, said she winced when she saw the ad for the first time.
"It was really mean-spirited," she said. "I'm a big fan of dark comedy but that just crossed the line. . . . I felt so bad for the girl in the spot."
She said the reverse psychology approach -- trying to sell more cheese by telling people not to buy it -- was a bold attempt to do something different, but didn't work in practice.
"The whole shtick with the old lady yelling at you to stop cooking with cheese. It's like: 'Shut up. Get out of my face.' " Cossette executives declined to comment on the controversy.
However, Ms. Noël said Cossette is pitching to keep the business.
Cossette works for the Dairy Farmers on both the butter and cheese accounts. But the marketing association has made a decision not to advertise butter next year, so only the cheese portion of the account is up for review.
It is unusual for an incumbent agency to hold on to an account when it is put up for review.
Ms. Noël said the Dairy Farmers will announce a short list next week. Before then it would be inappropriate to say if Cossette is in the running, she said.
Cossette also markets cheese for Quebec's dairy producers, using a different campaign. Cossette does not appear to be in danger of losing the French account.
In addition, the milk marketing campaigns, which are done by different agencies in different parts of Canada, are not affected by the review.
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This is from today's Globe and Mail. :koko: :shrug:
