From my blog

It’s all lies

Have you seen the current campaign for Rice Krispies Squares? Both the TV spot and the outdoor posters use the slogan ‘It’s all lies – they’re not even square’ to puncture an outrageous claim or offer – as well as the name of the product itself.

In the TV ad, the monstrous lie is the promise of a free boat with a purchase, while on the poster it’s the suggestion that the Square is about three feet wide (see image), or that 72,000 flavours are available. There’s also a (rather deserted) Facebook page. The ads were created by Leo Burnett.

I find the mechanics of this campaign fascinating. If we subject the ‘actual size’ poster to a lite structural analysis, you’ll see what I mean.

The underlying semiotic structure is as follows:

  • This is an advert for Rice Krispie Squares.
  • A Rice Krispie Square is as big as this poster.
  • The claim we just made is false.
  • The name of the product is also false.

The semantic algebra is 1+1–1–1=0. Everything added is then taken away, so at the end of the ad, the reader is left holding literally no meaning.

Of course, that’s looking at it in pure linguistic terms. The visual style and tone of voice also contribute.

From the look of the poster, we take away a nostalgia for the bright colours and Monty Python humour of the 1970s.

There’s also a playful metatextual element, as the ad invites us to join it in poking fun at inflated advertising claims and the way they’re hedged about with small print. If the reader buys into that idea, the copy has a ring of truth even as it highlights its own falsehood.

Promise of value

Regular readers will know how fond I am of the phrase ‘promise of value’. I’m always saying how a slogan, or marketing more widely, should promise the reader something they want, need or like.

The most basic interpretation of that is the distinction between product features and customer benefits. But when we get into the outer reaches of B2C branding, the definition of ‘benefit’ becomes very broad – and, crucially, includes the experience of the marketing as well as the product.

The Squares ad promises nothing in terms of sensual enjoyment, economy or anything else tangible we might associate with confectionery. Instead, it associates the brand with a mood or worldview that people might relate or aspire to. The sheer wackiness of the copy implies a sort of irresponsibility or nihilism that young people (I imagine) might enjoy.

Leaving the product behind

This is hardly new territory for B2C – Tango and Pot Noodle spring to mind as brands that have used postmodern self-referentiality and nutty humour.

Yet those campaigns still retained some link, however subtle or anarchic, with the physical experience of consuming the product. With this campaign, Squares has broken free of that completely.

Such an approach could only ever work for ‘fun’ and ‘youth’ brands. Imagine a B2B equivalent:

RGF Infrastructure Solutions. Our solutions don’t solve a thing!

What’s being sold isn’t the answer to a problem. It’s a pure throwaway pleasure that endears itself to its target audience by not taking itself remotely seriously – not even seriously enough to say it’s worth buying.

People’s choice

The campaign has won approval from marketing insiders for its courage in an age where most brands are emphasising social-media truth ‘n’ transparency. But does it really work? Well, I had my doubts, but then I saw this article, where the TV ad won the UTalkMarketing People’s Choice award. Out of a sample of 1000 people, 14% chose it as the ad that would make them want to buy the product or service advertised, putting it ahead of all the other ads (which weren’t named).

Of course, we have to be careful when people state their intentions in surveys. It’s not the same thing as actually parting with cash money for a product. But it’s clear that the campaign did, at the very least, increase the ‘fame’ of the brand with people most likely to buy it. With some audiences, it seems, only lies really ring true.

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Comments (14)

  1. I saw the ad for the first time yesterday.

    I really liked it. I think it strikes a chord of “Nah… only kidding”, which is pretty much part of every kid’s sense of humour – so we all relate to it.

  2. It’s clever that’s for sure, in fact a wee bit too clever for me. Deep down it’s saying, ‘all advertising is lies. so another doesn’t matter’. An obvious lie gets more attention, the bigger the better. Humorous, I think not, cynical a definite yes.

  3. I’m thinking along the same lines as Tom. After seeing these adverts I was just plain confused. It seems they aimed to hit the bar set by the Cadburys gorilla, unfortunately they’ve missed… by a mile!

  4. I think what I was really trying say is this: the makers of this ad obviously couldn’t think of anything true to say that would impress their audience, so they rather lazily decided to make up some lies that might get attention. Lazy, cynical or just bigger lies than usual? Sorry to say this one’s a big fail for me.

  5. You’re all missing the point! The campaign works on a very simple but brilliant observation: the product is called ‘Square’ but it is in fact a rectangle. It’s that simple! The fact that the product (and the brave client) is open to such a fun treatment means that this piece of product interrogation is usable. Bravo!

  6. Andy, I don’t think people buy things because some ad person calls a rectangular package square. As I said too clever for me, where’s the value in sounding clever?

  7. Tom, it’s all about branding. We buy trainers because of the stripes, T shirts because of the label, lager because of the humour asociated with it. When we buy into a brand we join a ‘club’ that we wish to be part of. The Squares advertising is silly and anarchic. It sticks two fingers up at the establishment and is a bit of fun. And what, after all, is a product like this if not a bit of fun? The advertising delivers in spades without the need for cliches and dull product descriptions. And that brightens up all our lives just a little bit. Unless you’re just a square?

  8. Andy, yes we like to belong and our buying decisions are distinctly emotional, but not irrational. Rice Krispies anarchic? I have a pretty good life for which I’m thankful. But i really don’t think that I’m looking for ads to bring colour into my life. I understand they want to get my attention so that I might buy more of what they’re selling but this is hardly life enhancing. I’m happy to be square.

  9. Tom, only kidding! This is probably the world’s dullest product and the agency/client have done a great job in arousing interest and debate. And remember: ads can never sell a thing – they can only ever create an opportunity to buy. Take care.

  11. I was walking through the tube two years back when me and a friend spotted a rice krispie squares ad – we both proclaimed how much we loved them, but i said the one thing that bugged me was that they weren’t square.

    I set up a micro site (now dead) and also a facebook group.

    http://www.facebook.com/groups/134864966534863/

    I got retweeted by kellogs and was hoping it could be a nice way to generate some business through them (as we’re a small agency)

    A few months later i was driving to work and saw the ‘squares of the world’ billboard campaign. And then more recently this stroke of genius from Leo Burnett. To which everyone who’d seen our previous work was telling me how our idea was on TV…

    Coincidence? Maybe…but it’ all just a little close to the bone for my liking.

  14. It’s hardly worth breaking product advertising down. What have John Lewis’s cinematographic Xmas ads got to do with their shop? That little slimy bloke who jumps on the back of the man coughing up phlegm in the middle of the night, only to be thwacked away when he takes some medicine? Any McDonalds ad – they’re all nonsense. That said, John Lewis sales were up something percent as a result of their ad that clearly cost an awful lot of boxes of rice krispies squares, cough medicines or big macs. That’s how I always equate it. Just how many chocolate bars does advertising a chocolate bar cost. And, how much does British gas have to put up their prices to run a national press, radio and tv campaign to tell us just how ***ing wonderful they are?

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