#Puppymonkeybaby – A Catchy Flop

 

 – By Ben Cober, director of business development and research

 

In the weeks following Super Bowl L, the most talked-about advertisement among my network was #Puppymonkeybaby. If you were in the kitchen refilling your plate of nachos during it or simply went and enjoyed the beautiful weather instead of watching the game, here it is in all its [questionable] glory.

 

While most of my friends and colleagues had seen the commercial, and even [to the advertiser’s success] repeated the phrase in the correct, low-and-fast voice (Puppymonkeybaby), almost everyone responded in nearly the exact same way:

“What was that!? It was so weird, and what were they even selling? I don’t even remember WHO was selling it!”

And that, right there, is why this advertisement fails. In advertising and branding analysis, we talk about unaided and aided recall. In unaided recall, we may ask a focus group to name types of cars – and then we record which brands (or if they can only name the model, and not the manufacturer) they can remember. That gives us a good picture of which brands are top of consumers’ minds.

In aided recall, it’s a lot easier for the consumer; we prompt them with the brand, and record their brand attribute associations. In more specific cases, we’ll show an advertisement to a focus group and ask them if they’ve seen it before. And then at various time periods after showing it to them, we’ll ask them what they remember about it, what the product was, who the company was, who was in the commercial, and what it was about.

So, in my week-long, free, informal focus group of my network, the aided recall of #Puppymonkeybaby is virtually nil, with the added consumer negativity of disgust and/or confusion.

It’s been reported that a 30-second advertisement in this year’s Superbowl cost $5 million, which is $166,666 per second. Let’s break down what this company’s 32-second, $5.3 million (on just securing the spot, not the cost of producing the ad) displayed:

• 26: Seconds the product is visible

• 26: Seconds Puppymonkeybaby is visible (both the product and Puppymonkeybaby have a single-second shot without each other)

• 6: Seconds the brand name is clearly visible

• 5: Seconds the product name is clearly visible

• 1: The number of times the parent brand and product name are said (not by the characters in the commercial)

• 0: The number of times the parent company name is displayed or said

 So who is this ad for? 

The commercial opens on a rather stark living room, with three men (two African American and one white) in their mid-20s sitting close together on a black leather couch. Their faces and posture give a sign of boredom. They are all wearing worn jeans, sneakers, a long-sleeved polo, and two sets of white t-shirts and unbuttoned button-downs. The men are conservative: no wild hair cuts, clothing styles, tattoos, or piercings. They are dressed to look average and bored.

The set dress echoes their attitude: little decoration, a dull-looking sound system, a window sill into the kitchen with a few indiscernible knick-knacks, and a coffee table with an empty bowl of food and a set of unplugged headphones. There is no music, but the indecipherable drone of a younger woman’s voice on the television can be heard in the background.

The only line spoken by a character in the entire commercial is, “Man, I might just chill tonight.”

Puppymonkeybaby arrives through a surprise door with an iced bucket containing three products, and begins to dance with a rattle for the men. At first they’re concerned and confused; but they drink the product anyway. But even when consuming the product, they only seem mildly satisfied (this is a far cry away from Coca-Cola’s #MakeItHappy commercial).

As the creature continues to say its name over and over again, at second 22 (2/3 through the commercial), the men finally get up and begin to dance along to the creature’s rhythm (important note: it is the creature, not the product, that has an effect on them). The men then follow Puppymonkeybaby out the door while dancing; but again, this is not joyful, energized, or excited dancing – it is serious and rhythmic. We see the men dancing for a mere five seconds: they are only positively impacted by the brand influencer (Puppymonkeybaby) – and not the product – for a mere 16% of the commercial.

That’s $4.5 million showing people not being positively influenced by a product.

And I’m still struggling who the target market is for this ad. It seems rather specific if it’s, “20-something, bored men looking to get weird.”

Now in advertising, the two most common threads are the Aspiration messages (“If you buy this, you’ll have the life of these glamorous people”) and the Fear messages (“If you don’t buy this, you will be missing out on a part of life, you will be unprepared, or you will not be as good as your friends”). It is rare form when a commercial breaks through and doesn’t necessarily conform to either, like 2011’s hot Superbowl ad, “The Force” by Volkswagen:

(Although, in truth, this ad does leverage Aspiration advertising, as it’s set in a big and beautiful house and a lovely neighborhood, but it’s not to the extreme as Axe Body Spray).

When we look at #Puppymonkeybaby, there’s no Fear (even when the creature shows up, the guys don’t seem to be having that good of a time; and the creature’s off-putting: we as viewers aren’t really sure we’d want to encounter it). And there’s no Aspiration; the setting and the guys themselves don’t seem like something we wish we had in our lives, and the brand and product only help them acquire a mild, short interest in lazy dancing – why do we need that?

It’s pretty easy to see how we got here.

You can almost hear the [creative?] brainstorm.

• Greg: “Ok team, Superbowl ad time, what are people in to? What do they love? What’s hot right now?”
  • Jeff: “Do you remember that Lost Puppy ad from Budweiser at the last Super Bowl?”
• Greg: “Yes, Jeff, brilliant. Yes, Lost Puppy, the Puppy Bowl, people love puppies!”
  • Angie: “Well, I loved the Career Builder Monkeys from Super Bowl 40 and Trunk Monkey from Super Bowl 45!”
• Greg: “Angie, so on it, yes! People think monkeys are hilarious. Perfect!”
  • Tawnya: “And that ETrade Baby from Super Bowl 42 was adorable!”
• Greg: “Yes, perfect as always. Babies are adorable, they can sell anything! Now wait a second…”puppy“….”monkey“…”baby.” “Puppy“..”monkey“..”baby“…
  • Angie: [in a low, quick voice] “Puppymonkeybaby.”
  • [The group breaks out in laughter]
• Greg: “Yes, that’s perfect! Puppymonkeybaby – let’s do all three!”

What’s the Point of All This?

When we engage with our own team and with our clients in the creative process – whether it be for a branding exercise, a new exhibit at a zoo, a whole new museum, or simply discussing where a Yeti may vacation – it’s incredibly easy to quickly run off the rails and throw out all sorts of wild ideas. In addition, in the interest of time, it’s often easier to just accept these early, wild ideas and move forward; because they were fun and hilarious, in that moment, and we have other things we need to move on to so that we meet our deadlines.

But we’re here as guides and consultants to craft experiences that reinforce the missions, messages, lessons, and brands of our clients, and we need to ensure that everything we do with and for them help them reinforce those goals. We want guests to remember the name of the destination, the names of the experiences they had there, and all the positive attributes, stories, facts, and lessons that destinations communicate through their myriad brand demonstrations and points of contact.

So while it’s fun to laugh about or raise a sneer and an eyebrow, your destination doesn’t need a #Puppymonkeybaby. It needs a #PGAVDestinations.