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Number
40: February 18, 2004
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This week in Katydid:
Screeching
to Your Audience
They are very disturbing. They spoil my appetite. My wife can't stand to
look at them. My children love them. They laugh like crazy whenever
they're on TV – and they love that we hate them. They're spongemonkeys,
the lead characters in the new ads for Quizno's
subs, a strange amalgam of marsupials (mice? no one knows) and bad
dental work that would make Picasso say, "Whaaa?"
The reaction to the campaign by the Martin
Agency of Richmond goes two directions dividing evenly along a
'certain age' line. You either hate it or love it, but there's no way
you can ignore it.
So, it grabs your attention but does it work? Is it good branding to
have your food represented by the kind of creatures you're afraid
scamper along the floorboards?
Quizno's is in second place in the sandwich category behind Subway.
They want to appeal to young men of high school and college age who are
the most loyal consumers. Last year, they tried the edgy approach with a
series of spots featuring a man raised by wolves. Unfortunately for
them, nearly every agency seemed to have had the same idea and the
content failed to connect with the audience.
The "We Love the Subs!" campaign, starring the
spongemonkeys is far edgier and as for humor, it probably has its
strongest appeal to consumers of unregulated herbal combustibles;
however, it's meant to go over our head and it's a good example of
courage in advertising.
Like hearing your father trying to use '-izzle' in a sentence, when
commercials try to 'reach the youngsters' they seem awkward and ring
false. They have no credibility (street cred, dogs – just keepin' it
real).
The young consumer is hyper-aware of advertising. They're conscious
of their coveted status and they are unforgiving of posers. The content
of the Quizno's commercials is very straightforward. There's no hype,
just information – toasty, tasty subs. You get the beauty shots of the
food behind the dancing spongemonkeys. It's as if Quizno's doesn't even
care if they turn your stomach.
However, before everyone goes out and creates a series of disgusting
ads for their products, you should be aware that the credibility doesn't
stem from the weirdness alone. It comes from the web counterculture.
The original
spongemonkeys are the creation of UK web artist, Joel Vietch, who
has a huge underground following. His personal
web site – in reality, a blog – contains a number of characters of
that same unstructured, low-tech animation style made possible by
PhotoShop and Flash. Be forewarned, if you find the commercials
humorless, his other videos will likely be crude and offensive.
For tamer fare, he has done commercials
for Switch/Maestro
debit cards. You can see his punk kittens and angry
kittens performing versions of songs like "Welcome to the
Jungle" and "Atomic Dog" on bumpers between programming
on MTV.
This kind of low-budget, cutout animation coupled with underground,
viral distribution made South
Park into a popular phenomenon. The style has huge credibility with
young men precisely because none of the rest of us is even aware of it.
Furthermore, the style is part of the undesign movement, where
aesthetic design is secondary to content. Two philosophies drive this
movement. From the practical side are the usability and human factor
gurus like Jakob Nielson and Jason
Kottke. Blogs
are the best example of this philosophy because they're all about
content and care little about appearance.
From the artistic side, you have web artists (Vietch and his
contemporaries) on sites such as b3ta.
In an age where technology allows almost anyone to look polished and
professional, one way to demonstrate creativity is have the courage to
be impulsive, reckless, crude, and ugly. An interview
on that site quotes Vietch:
"My mission is to destroy production values through swamping
the online world with badly-polished graphics."
In film, you have the Dogme
95 movement, which eschews artifice by asking directors to take a
"Vow of Chastity." They agree to shoot only on location
instead of sets, using natural instead of artificial light, and
hand-held cameras instead of employing dollies and cranes.
Much like Pop Artists such as Andy Warhol
and Roy
Lichtenstein made us hyper-aware of
consumer culture, the undesign movement makes us examine the plastic
veneer of perfection that has become part of our cultural aesthetic.
The commercials work and I'm frankly surprised that the campaign got
through the corporate approval process. I don't know if Quizno's or its
consumers are aware of the irony of using the anti-corporate aesthetic
to sell sandwiches. Since Joel works with prestigious agencies like cdp-travissully
and the Martin Agency, I'm betting he's laughing all the way to the
bank.
The kids buying the sandwiches are surely unaware of the long history
of each generation tearing down the conventions of the previous in order
to build a new identity. Maybe they should all go rent The
Graduate. If the wheel keeps turning, I'll bet the future will
be plastics.
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