Jaded creatives line up to slag off new campaign for Hortico via Mammal, Sydney
While national garden care brand Hortico has returned to Australian screens with confidence, the same can’t be said for the Campaign Brief press release issued by Mammal, Sydney.
Says Luke Chess, creative partner, Mammal: “We’re tentative at best. I mean, these pieces, we’re terribly proud of – entertaining spots that support the great value and great results you get in your garden when using Hortico.
“But when you see the bile this industry spits at what’s often brilliant and effective work – I mean, I just urge every marketer I know to steer clear of the comments section.”
“Eh?” adds commenter Blah, of Melbourne. “I watched these three times and still no idea what they’re about.”
“I think they’re pretty clear,” Chess responds. “While there are always things you can’t rely on in your garden, you can at least rely on the value of …”
“Crap idea, crap production, crap ad,” interrupts Adland Anon, of Sydney. “Looks like it’s all been cobbled together using library footage.”
“Actually, we have indeed used library shots for these,” replies Chess. “This gave us the flexibility to produce numerous spots and convey a value message for the brand.”
“Why would you PR this?” asks Why Would You PR This? of Perth.
Says Chess: “I’m starting to wonder the same thing myself.”
26 Comments
Whoa…meta article.
I’ve been asking myself the same thing recently Luke. Does bile help your garden grow? Nowhere near as well as Hortico i imagine. Thanks for another entertaining post.
The ad was garbage.
You’ve now managed to make your brand look worse for standing up for poor ads, rather than trying to beat them.
Well done, Chessticle. You’ve shown your genius again.
Thanks for calling it out Chesticles. About bloody time.
…for the shitstorm to kick off in these comments.
Checkmate, adland creatives.
Looks like all the creative development time went into the press release.
Yeah, look, I get the irony but if you’d put in just a smidgen of the effort that you put to this press release into your actual ads that you’re featuring here, they might be a whole lot better.
You only wrote the really quite entertaining press release because you knew the work was shit.
That’s not bile, so much as fact.
This PR release should win everything.
Do you think the brand would like this approach? Calling out that people will say they’re shit because you know they’re shit and so do we?
How does the client feel about turning a press release about their new campaign into a big industry joke?
Selfish behaviour.
I’d suggest the client would appreciate the approach. As an almost twenty year suit and a few years as a client, delivering a campaign on time and budget is more important than satisfying a bunch of agency people who far too often lose sight of the actual job at hand and too scared to put their name beside their comments.
It’s an industry blog, you sanctimonious shitbag.
Aussie creatives are so weak and pathetic. Lighten up, have some fun or f@@k off
This headline is what the Onion would write if advertising was actually newsworthy.
commenting in the press release were right.
This was not a good idea to do.
If I bag out the ad, I will be exactly the person they are targeting with the PR. But if I applaud this garbage, I will be selling myself out. Decisions, decisions… Gonna go with my gut… THIS WORK IS PURE FERTILISER!
Entertaining press release Chess, I chuckled. And my back lawn is f^&%ed as f^&% so I’m buying Hortico this weekend.
No I dont work at Mammal, Hortico or Bunnings.
Nice try.
Well, that’s me fucked.
Nice one Luke.
Creatives that assume they are the target audience show what utter tools they are. Concise spots well executed. The article is expert PR too.
Well played Luke.
You couldn’t ’roundup’ a worse campaign with ‘zero’ idea and all the quality of a ‘slasher’ if you tried