Feed Them Beautiful? Or Feed Them Something Better?

Some advertising campaigns make you stop and think.

Then there are campaigns that make you stop and think, “Why?”

And then there are campaigns that give you motion sickness.

Sealord’s new Skipper pet-food campaign, Feed Them Beautiful, is one of them.

The idea is apparently to treat pet food like a luxury beauty product. Shiny fur. Clear eyes. Strong nails. Healthy skin. The campaign borrows heavily from the visual language of beauty advertising, with glossy imagery, editorial-style photography and, yes, semi-naked human bodies.

It's certainly different. But different isn't necessarily good.

Why are we looking at naked people?

Let's start with the obvious question.

Why are there semi-naked people in an advert for pet food?

The thinking seems to be that Skipper contains omega-3 and marine collagen, and that these ingredients contribute to the visible signs of a healthy pet. So the campaign has borrowed the visual conventions of beauty and skincare advertising.

Fair enough.

But there's a difference between using the codes of a category and simply reproducing its most obvious clichés.

Beauty advertising has spent decades telling us that beautiful bodies, flawless skin and carefully lit people equal desirable products.

So perhaps the creative idea was: let's make pet food look like a beauty product.

The problem is that the joke arrives before the advertising message does.

You see the beautiful people.

You see the beautiful photography.

You see the beautiful styling.

And eventually you discover that you're looking at pet food.

The question is whether the creative device makes you more interested in Skipper, or whether you're simply admiring the production.

When the execution becomes the idea.

There's nothing inherently wrong with making pet food advertising beautiful.

In fact, there's plenty to like about the ambition.

Skipper is entering a category where many brands communicate in broadly similar ways: happy dogs, happy cats, bowls of food, healthy-looking animals and earnest claims about nutrition.

So trying to disrupt that category is entirely reasonable.

Sealord itself says the intention was to take a fresh approach, challenge pet-food conventions and have some fun.

But here's where I think the campaign falls down.

It feels like the advertising is more interested in being advertising than selling the product.

The campaign looks like a parody of a beauty campaign.

And once you've recognised the parody, what have you learned about Skipper?

That it's fish-based?

That it contains omega-3?

That it contains marine collagen?

That it might make your pet look healthier?

Those are potentially useful reasons to buy the product.

Yet they seem to be playing second fiddle to the creative conceit.

And then there's the food itself.

Here's another question I'd ask if I were reviewing this campaign from the perspective of a pet owner:

Where is the appetite appeal?

Pet food isn't perfume.

It's pet food.

And yet the campaign seems determined to make the product look like something you'd find on a bathroom shelf rather than something you'd put in your pet's bowl.

The irony is that the campaign is selling the result of feeding the product rather than making us interested in the product itself.

That's a risky strategy.

Because if the actual food looks like the same brownish, processed mash that occupies much of the pet-food aisle, then telling me it's "beautiful" doesn't necessarily make me believe it.

Calling something beautiful doesn't make it beautiful.

And calling pet food a beauty product doesn't make it one.

Is this really differentiation?

This is the part that interests me most as an advertising person.

The stated ambition is to challenge category conventions.

But has it really done that?

Or has it simply taken a familiar advertising convention from one category and transplanted it into another?

We've seen this trick before.

Take the visual language of luxury fashion.

Apply it to something ordinary.

Make it self-aware.

Add a little irony.

Call it disruptive.

It can work brilliantly.

But it can also become advertising's version of wearing sunglasses indoors: something that looks cool in the creative department but leaves everyone else wondering what the hell is going on.

Clever isn't the same as effective.

I have no doubt that considerable thought has gone into Feed Them Beautiful.

And technically, it appears to be very well executed.

The photography is polished. The production values are high. The campaign is visually distinctive. And the beauty-editorial treatment certainly makes it stand out from traditional pet-food advertising.

But advertising isn't an art competition.

The question isn't:

“Is this clever?”

The question is:

“Will this make people want to buy Skipper?”

Those are two very different questions.

A campaign can win awards, generate industry discussion and make creatives congratulate each other over coffee and still fail to build a meaningful brand.

Perhaps we're overcomplicating pet food?

There is something wonderfully simple about the underlying product story.

Sealord has developed a seafood-only pet food using unused fish product and waste, turning material that might otherwise be discarded into nutritionally complete pet food. The product is also naturally rich in omega-3 and marine collagen.

That's actually interesting.

There is a sustainability story.

There is a nutritional story.

There is a distinctly Sealord story.

There is a reason for a seafood company to enter the pet food aisle.

And there is a potentially compelling reason for a pet owner to choose the product.

So why bury all of that underneath a campaign about beautiful people?

The irony of “Feed Them Beautiful”

Perhaps the greatest irony is that the campaign seems to be telling us not to judge the product by its appearance.

Instead, we're supposed to judge it by the appearance of the pet eating it.

That's a clever thought.

But clever thoughts don't automatically make great advertising.

Sometimes the strongest creative idea is the one that makes the product impossible to misunderstand.

I'd have liked to see Skipper own what makes it genuinely different.

Fish.

Nutrition.

Omega-3.

Marine collagen.

Using more of the fish resource rather than wasting it.

Those are real stories.

Instead, we're given a beauty campaign where the product itself almost feels like the supporting actor.

So, is Feed Them Beautiful a bad campaign?

Not necessarily.

It's certainly memorable.

It's certainly different.

And if the objective was to get people talking about a new pet-food brand, it has probably succeeded.

But that's a pretty low bar for advertising.

The real test is whether people remember, and buy (most importantly), Skipper, or whether they simply remember that weird pet-food ad with all the beautiful, semi-naked people.

Because there's a big difference between being remembered and being remembered for something useful.

And that's the lesson I'd take from Feed Them Beautiful.

Don't confuse attention with persuasion.

Don't confuse beautiful advertising with effective advertising.

And, above all, don't assume that because you've made something look different, you've actually made the brand different.

Sometimes the best advertising isn't the campaign that makes the biggest splash.

It's the campaign that gives people a really good reason to buy.

And frankly, I'd rather be sold something genuinely compelling than be told that a bowl of brown fish mash is beautiful.

Lastly, why isn’t the Feed Them Beautiful visual campaign being repeated on the Skipper website?

Where’s the campaign follow-through? No semi-naked people here. Maybe it’s because Sealord’s Korean customers would just not get it?

When Advertising Takes Flight

What the Cape Town Stadium Flyover Can Teach Us About Branding.

Sometimes the best advertising isn't an ad.

It isn't a billboard. It isn't a 30-second television commercial. It isn't a sponsored social media post carefully crafted to fit an algorithm.

Sometimes, it's two aeroplanes flying dramatically over a packed stadium.

That was the case in Cape Town this weekend when two Airlink aircraft performed a spectacular flyover of DHL Stadium moments before the Springboks faced the All Blacks in the second Test of the Rugby's Greatest Rivalry series. The aircraft, painted in colours representing the two teams, became part of the pre-match spectacle—and within minutes, footage of the flyover appeared across social media and news platforms worldwide.

From an advertising perspective, it's a fascinating example of how a well-executed brand experience can generate far more attention than conventional advertising.

Make people stop and look.

The first rule of effective advertising is simple: get noticed.

That's becoming increasingly difficult. We're surrounded by thousands of commercial messages every day. Consumers scroll past ads, skip videos, ignore banners and become increasingly good at filtering out anything that looks like advertising.

But it's much harder to ignore two passenger jets roaring over a stadium just before kick-off.

The flyover created an immediate visual spectacle. Tens of thousands of people in the stadium saw it. Millions more saw it on television and online. And because it was unusual and visually dramatic, people didn't simply watch it—they filmed it, photographed it, shared it and talked about it.

That's powerful branding.

Turn an audience into a media channel

One of the cleverest things about experiential advertising is that the audience becomes part of the distribution network.

Everyone with a smartphone suddenly becomes a potential broadcaster.

The Cape Town flyover is a perfect example. Videos from different angles quickly appeared online, sparking conversation and letting the stunt travel well beyond the people physically inside the stadium.

This is where traditional advertising and experiential marketing increasingly overlap.

You don't necessarily need to buy every impression if you can create something people genuinely want to share.

The best campaigns don't just reach an audience.

They give the audience something worth talking about.

Give the brand a role in the story.

Another reason the flyover worked so well is that Airlink wasn't simply placing its logo next to a sporting event.

The brand was actually part of the experience.

Airlink was the official domestic airline for the Rugby's Greatest Rivalry tour, transporting the teams, coaches and support staff between matches. The aircraft therefore weren't an unrelated advertising stunt—they were directly connected to the event's story.

That's an important distinction.

Good sponsorship isn't just about putting a logo on something.

It's about finding a credible reason for the brand to be there.

An airline has aeroplanes. Rugby has teams travelling between cities. Put the two together and suddenly the brand has a natural role within the story.

That's much more powerful than simply sticking a logo on a hoarding.

Create something people remember.

Great branding is ultimately about memory.

When someone thinks back to the match, they won't necessarily remember every advertising board around the stadium. They may not remember which brands appeared during every commercial break.

But many people will remember the moment those two aircraft appeared over the stadium.

That's the difference between exposure and impact.

The flyover created a distinctive memory associated with Airlink. It gave the brand a moment that people could experience rather than simply consume.

Memorable moments are extremely valuable in advertising because they help brands stay top of mind when consumers eventually need to make a purchasing decision.

Controversy can create attention—but it needs to be handled carefully.

Of course, the flyover wasn't universally applauded.

The low altitude of the aircraft prompted considerable discussion online, with some observers questioning how close the planes appeared to the stadium. Airlink subsequently stated that the flyover had been carefully planned, rehearsed and conducted within safety parameters approved by the relevant aviation authorities.

From a marketing perspective, this highlights another interesting lesson.

Attention is valuable—but attention alone isn't the objective.

A campaign needs to be bold enough to be noticed without creating a problem that overwhelms the brand message.

In this case, the debate arguably generated even more coverage for the stunt. But it also demonstrates why ambitious experiential campaigns require meticulous planning, risk management and execution.

The spectacle might look spontaneous.

The successful campaign behind it rarely is.

The real lesson for brands.

The Cape Town flyover demonstrates something that every business can learn from.

You need a better idea.

The campaign worked because it combined several powerful ingredients:

A strong visual idea.
Two aircraft over a stadium is inherently attention-grabbing.

A relevant brand connection.
Airlink's role as the official airline made the aircraft's presence meaningful.

A huge captive audience.
The stadium, television audience and online viewers provided immediate scale.

Shareability.
The spectacle was almost designed for smartphones and social media.

Timing.
The flyover happened at the precise moment anticipation for the game was at its peak.

Memorability.
It created a moment people were likely to remember long after the final whistle.

None of those things happened by accident.

Advertising doesn't have to look like advertising.

This is perhaps the biggest lesson.

The most effective advertising increasingly doesn't feel like advertising.

It feels like entertainment. It feels like news. It feels like an experience. It gives people something they want to see, discuss and share.

And when the brand is naturally integrated into that experience, the advertising becomes much more powerful.

At Partisan Advertising, that's the sort of thinking we believe brands should be doing more of.

Don't just ask, "Where can we put our logo?"

Ask:

"What could we create that people would actually want to see?"

Because when an idea is good enough, the audience doesn't feel like they're being advertised to.

They simply feel like they've witnessed something worth talking about.

And that's when branding really takes flight.

When do terms and conditions matter?

Pams has recently started an advertising and branding campaign claiming that it is “the most popular grocery brand in the land”. Their substantiation? “New Zealanders buy more Pams groceries than groceries from any other single brand. Based on Homescan data NielsonIQ, 2023. T&Cs apply.”

That’s directly from their website, and it’s a weasel claim. The “T&Cs apply” are proof of that.

Considering that Pams is the (often) cheapest white-label brand of choice for New World, Pak’nSave, and Four Square, their claim seems legitimate—or does it?

Pams is part of New Zealand’s grocery cartel, so it’s obvious that they’ll sell more since they have more shelf space, lower prices, and the widest range of products. This doesn’t make them the most popular brand.

The claim Pams puts out there is the same as the New Zealand Transport Agency claiming that the SH1 motorway is New Zealand’s most popular road because it sees the most traffic.

Bunnings and Mitre10 have their own nebulous claim, which also comes with T&Cs: if you find a lower-priced item at a competitor, they’ll beat that price by 15%.

But since they’re another cartel, they can control their stock, which means you’ll never find the exact same big-ticket products like a Masport lawnmower at Bunnings or find a Bosch lawnmower at Mitre 10.

Even if you drill down to products like turpentine or nails, the brands are never the same at the two stores, so how much worth is there in a perceived 15% discount?

It was David Ogilvy who stated that “the consumer is not a moron.” But every day, more and more advertisers and big businesses push us into that category. That’s not where I want anyone to be.

Shouldn’t we all be loath to be taken advantage of in this way? I know I am.

PS. I called Pams to find out what the T&Cs are, and they didn’t know themselves.

Road to Zero will never work. Here’s why.

Perfection is unattainable. We cannot eliminate human error, complacency, mechanical failure, and outside influences.

I recently lost a good friend in a car accident. I don’t know exactly what happened, except there was a collision involving a truck. My friend, Marianne Mckenzie, owned a media company and was actively involved in the advertising industry. We’d spoken about Waka Kotahi New Zealand Transport Association’s (NZTA) advertising on many occasions. But she’s gone now to join the other 379 who died on New Zealand’s roads in 2022.

Is the NZTA’s advertising working?

No. With an advertising budget of fourteen million dollars, you have to ask why. The messaging is fractured and confusing, and worst of all, it’s now focusing more on using scare tactics to get its message across. Have a look at the NZTA’s current campaigns running on their marketing campaign page and you can see what they’re doing. My opinion is that of the 14 campaigns displayed, only three do not use scare tactics.

And now other companies are taking matters into their own hands. The HW Richardson Group has just launched a driver safety campaign called Almost Dead. Their Almost Dead campaign uses real-life dashcam footage, collected from its fleet of over 1,300 trucks to show how reckless drivers are on the roads. It’s a fascinating view of how bad drivers can be. Kudos to HWR for taking the wheel here.

Is the NZTA’s advertising agency, BBDO Clemenger, responsible for the higher death tolls?

Yes – 2022 was the worst year for road deaths since 2017, and the worst for deaths over the Festive Season since 2018. The road death toll is up 18% since 2017. Proof of BBDO’s failure to convert. Advertising is all about results but Clemenger BBDO likely has other goals: advertising awards.

In 2014, Clemenger BBDO won 38 global and local advertising awards for their road safety campaign. In 2014, 293 people died on our roads. Effectively, Clemenger BBDO won just over one advertising award for every seven people who died.

Was Clemenger BBDO’s 2014 advertising campaign for the NZTA effective? Based on the death toll in 2014, no, it wasn’t. And they haven’t created an effective, results-driven campaign since then and the numbers in 2022 prove it.

Lowering our death toll isn’t all about creativity, nor does it necessarily require it. Clemenger BBDO is in a very privileged position to work with the NZTA. I know lowering the death toll is a difficult task, but Clemenger BBDO has immense resources, global partners, and colossal manpower. We must demand more from them.

Going back to my friend Marianne’s death, anything could have happened. I believe she was a good driver – I drove with her on many occasions from Auckland to Hamilton, and she showed no signs of bad driving habits. So, was she distracted when she died? Was the other party driving sensibly? Who knows.

What can we, as road users, do?

Driving better is the obvious, clichéd answer. But that’s far too simple to work. We should already be driving better, and the NZTA should be making progress in dropping the death toll, but neither of us is succeeding.

Should we be asking the NZTA to produce advertising about car maintenance? Should they lower the WOF requirements back to six months? Can they get off their butts and do something about the state of the roads? Should we ask that the NZTA move all advertising in-house and remove the advertising awards influence, or even go as far as saying that all advertising done for the NZTA can’t be entered in awards? There are many possibilities, but it’s unlikely we’ll get a solution acceptable to every road user.

It’s Thursday night as I type this, and I can hear two cars racing on Te Irirangi Drive, about one kilometre away, where the speed limit is 60km/h. I’m sure one of them has a V-Tech engine. I don’t think any of the drivers care.

My next-door neighbour owns a car tuning company called Eastern Automotive. One of the engine upgrades they can do to a Holden is the Walkinshaw Package, where they can take the car’s power output up to 547KW. And just down the road, another neighbour earns extra income by tuning BMWs to increase their power output. Speed kills, but it makes lots of money too. And as long as there are people actively chasing speed, the roads will not get any safer.

Writing this blog has just made me even more sceptical about Road to Zero, and I’d like to think there’s more optimist in me than cynic but there isn’t about this topic.

Road to Zero will never work.