This week, women-led period tracking app Clue partnered with broadcaster and activist Ashley James to launch ‘The Cost of Bleeding’ – a petition calling on the UK government to make period products free across England. About time, right? Scotland was there nearly four years ago…
The campaign speaks for itself. Built around a single, slightly nauseating stat – an average lifetime cost of £20,359 – ‘The Cost of Bleeding’ campaign was teased and launched on social but ultimately engineered to drive people directly to the petition.
Fronting the whole thing with activist and well-known TV personality Ashley was a clever move too – huge social reach and genuine authenticity (she even appeared on Celebrity Mastermind recently with a suffragette as her specialist subject).
As someone partial to a clever bit of copy, this is a hit for me because of its simplicity and potential for impact – and for putting Clue firmly on my radar.
This week Warburtons celebrated 150 years at Baker Street, and as much as I want to say I love this, I don’t.
Yes, it’s a bit of fun, and if I had experienced it first-hand, maybe I would have liked it more. But Tube station takeovers just feel a bit done.
I loved it when Absolut transformed Charing Cross into a free art exhibition with Keith Haring. I liked it when Olivia Dean had a station renamed in her honour to mark her BRIT nominations, as Manchester hosted the awards for the first time. But now? I’m a bit over it.
Don’t get me wrong, all of the wordplay made me smile. But Tube stations don’t exactly scream ‘sanitary baking environment’, and for a brand with as much heritage as Warburtons, a grubby Underground full of crumpets feels like an undersell.
Plus, if you need to get Morgan Freeman involved to sell the story, it probably isn’t working hard enough.
On paper, this makes total sense. Aldi rocking up in Bournville (the home of Cadbury Mini Eggs) to hand out free Choceur Mini Chocolate Eggs is a cheeky move firmly rooted in the ‘brand multiverse’ it pioneered. It should be really funny, but for me, the execution just falls a bit flat.
The picture story doesn’t sell the ‘brandter’ we’ve come to know and love online and even the social content feels like it’s missing an extra gear. Where are the Facebook status updates? Or sneaky comments on Cadbury socials?
It’s perfectly nice and the mechanic is sound, but when you’re taking on something as iconic as Cadbury Mini Eggs at Easter, the idea needs that extra bit of humour and trademark Aldi finesse to really crack it.
