Setting up the marketing mishap

Will Ockenden 0:00

So do you want to tell us about some of the campaigns that haven't perhaps worked as well ?

Gareth Turner 0:03

You want to go there , do you ? We do , we do ? Oh , definitely , straight in there . So I left Heineken and I joined Arla and I wanted to make a name for myself . So I was tasked with launching this chocolate milkshake drink and I launched this chocolate milkshake drink . We had a campaign shot . We had uh , outdoor and I need the pr , need the pr campaign here , right and okay , it sticks in my throat , you can see . You see me hesitating to even say it right sticking there .

Chris Norton 0:37

I can't bring myself . This is why everyone's you want to hear this .

Gareth Turner 0:41

So it

The human hair coat campaign

Gareth Turner 0:42

was . The stunt was that we created a coat made out of human hair , made out of the sort of sweepings off a barbershop floor , and we got some London fashion students to make this thing and we PR'd that , I repeat , to support the launch of a chocolate milkshake .

Chris Norton 1:05

So okay , okay , let's just go back . We'll just wind back to the strategy .

Will Ockenden 1:09

Well , yeah , there you go . It's all based on insight .

Chris Norton 1:11

So the insight of having human hair onto a coat . Let's just go through the insight .

Gareth Turner 1:17

And there you go . There's the challenge , right . So the brand was it was a high-protein chocolate milk stream with added protein 25 grams of protein . It was an amazing product . And the campaign idea we were riffing on these ideas of overblown masculinity . So on my Facebook feed today the shoot was 11 years ago today and there's pictures of me . I can say I've never looked cooler than the moment of me in this coat and sort

Analyzing why it failed

Gareth Turner 1:49

of big , long fur coat .

Chris Norton 1:50

Can we get that picture ?

Gareth Turner 1:52

It wasn't in that coat .

Chris Norton 1:52

good Lord Is that picture on the internet . It's not the hair coat . We're going to get that in the video . Oh the hair coat .

Gareth Turner 1:57

I've given you a link to the hair coat .

Chris Norton 1:58

Oh , let's take a look at that .

Gareth Turner 2:00

But it's overblown . Masculinity was the idea , and we had a guy holding a lion looking strong , like they're sort of perfume ads and sort of there's a riff on those sort of things , right , and it's like things like , yeah , we thought that was funny and so we just took it to the next level . So what could be more manly than a coat made of man hair ? And so that was the thought progression . But I come back to your point there was no insight there . So why did that not work ? Well , I think a number of different reasons . I think it was overly complicated . It was so many layers to that onion that you had to unpick to understand why we'd done that thing .

Gareth Turner 2:43

It wasn't executing an idea , it was a thing that we thought was funny and I've since learned that's not probably good enough to uh , to , to to put out in the real , real world . And finally , a fundamental of marketing is if you're talking about a food , it needs to be talking about taste , or at least not going against taste , and it's not undermining taste credentials . So you put all those things together I I didn't adhere to the fundamentals of marketing and that's why that thing hence the name of the show that you've given us .

Will Ockenden 3:16

Yeah

CNN Japan calls about the coat

Will Ockenden 3:17

yeah , so , yeah that . So how has it met ? So you know you , you used this as a as a PR hook did you so what ? Was it met with indifference or confusion , or no , no , it was .

Chris Norton 3:26

What was the title ? That was my question , similar to what we were saying what was the title of the release ?

Gareth Turner 3:32

I can't remember . I'm trying to connect the two dots like human hair . I'm just looking here . The news article from 2013 was Manly Milk Company Creates Human Hair Fur Coat .

Will Ockenden 3:44

That's a very functional headline , isn't it ? But there was like a guy in this hair coat .

Gareth Turner 3:58

But it got some traction .

Will Ockenden 3:58

So it worked then ? Well , not .

Gareth Turner 3:59

But it's so complicated . You're right about the link . It was discussed .

Will Ockenden 4:01

The moment you've got to explain an idea . It's too complicated .

Gareth Turner 4:05

So I'm there the first , however many months six , seven months I'm into my job at Arla and I get a call from the global head of PR . He goes Gareth , I've got CNN from Japan on the line . I go oh my God , what have I done ? What have I done ? I'm just trying to do good stuff here . And he goes yeah , don't worry , mate , I'll sort this out . They want an interview , cnn want an interview with you . Okay , I can't do this , but yeah , so despite that , I did .

Chris Norton 4:33

All right , did you go on it .

Gareth Turner 4:35

No , no , no , no , no , no . Oh okay , no , no no . That was , I wasn't experienced enough to do that . Live Okay , life okay . Yeah , that it was . Yeah , it was . Thank god pierce morgan didn't get hold of that one , that would have been .

Chris Norton 4:46

Yeah , he wouldn't have liked . The weird thing , the weird thing about this is you're saying that he did get some traction despite the the headline being quite functional

Modern perspective on the campaign

Chris Norton 4:52

. But actually if , in the modern era of social media and tiktok , if you're doing a tiktok video about the campaign , yeah creating a jacket out of human hair , although I have to admit it does sound revolting , doesn't ?

Will Ockenden 5:03

it , it , it sounds itchy . It doesn't sound like something I want to wear .

Gareth Turner 5:08

It was awful , but it doesn't link to the product . It doesn't link to the logic flow from your product and your product benefit of it's got high protein . I mean that's quite a leap there . So I mean that's why I didn't .