Ferrero Rocher has finally abandoned its excruciating ’ambassador’s
reception’ advertising, and its new campaign, through Banks Hoggins
O’Shea FCB, has entered Adwatch at number 13 with 60% recall.
The new ad features a group of friends at a dinner party, where the
hostess does her utmost to prevent her guests from getting their hands
on her Ferrero Rocher.
Each time her husband asks for ’those special chocolates’ she comes back
from the kitchen with cognac, then the coffee, and finally claims she’s
forgotten to buy them. After a disapproving look from hubbie, she goes
to get them.
As she watches her guests devour the chocolates, she desperately blurts
out, ’Don’t eat them all,’ and then apologises for her outburst. The
campaign introduces the strapline ’Give Ferrero Rocher ... grudgingly’
which replaces ’A sign of good taste’ from the former ads.
John Crowther, account planner at Banks Hoggins, says: ’The ambassador
ads did a good job six years ago in getting the brand noticed, but
ultimately they let it down. They presented it as pretentious, and
people were laughing at the brand. We wanted to recapture what the brand
is about - simply that they’re special chocolates, and it’s hard to give
them to someone else.’
Crowther anticipates that it will be easy to keep the new theme running
for several years, but emphasises that it is not going to become a soap
opera, built around the same characters. The pounds 2.5m campaign was
launched at the end of October, to coincide with the pre-Christmas sales
period.
So it’s farewell to the ambassador advertisements, with their bad
dubbing and cheesy music. But the ads, which were created by Ferrero’s
in-house agency Publiregia and ran for six years, were so bad they were
a good joke. While the new ad has a more modern feel to it, and no music
whatsoever, it may be some time before people stop getting the urge to
adopt a French accent and declare: ’Monsieur, with this Rocher you’re
really spoiling us.’
To see the Ferrero Rocher ad visit www.marketing.haynet.com
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