The super spoof weapon

“I love the BBC so much I want to cut it up into little pieces and give it to all my friends,” says David Cameron in a political poster for the general election. This comedic line isn’t Cameron’s real marketing slogan, of course. It’s part of a crowdsourced spoof ad campaign started by the Labour Party.

This is just one of many spoofs generated by the political parties and their supporters in the election run-up. While party politics lends itself perfectly to poking fun at a competitor’s strategy, corporate brands are signing up to use the technique too.

Food brand Marmite has spent the past few months spoofing the election spoofs with its own campaign for the fictional “Love” or “Hate” political parties. It asks consumers to vote for either party after viewing the brand’s posters, broadcasts and even “manifestos” (see case study, below).

Betting firm Ladbrokes is also tapping into election spoofing fever with a TV spot showing a Tony Blair lookalike going into a Ladbrokes outlet to bet on David Cameron winning the election. Meanwhile, as an April Fool’s joke this year, BMW claimed customers could customise their vehicle’s roundel in the colour of their selected political party. And Ikea has created a spoof website offering kitchens styled according to the traits of the party leaders. You can choose Brün (durable and prudent), Kamerun (sleek and shiny) or Kleggi (touted as the week’s most popular offering).

Not all spoof activity out there is piggybacking on the political environment. Much of it is simply about brands raising their profile through any means available. Paul Bainsfair, regional CEO for Europe at agency Iris, which created a spoof campaign for the Liberal Democrats, explains: “It’s just about being topical. It has long been a trick of the ad industry to pick up on topical events and weave it into the brand message.”

Matthew Bundy, planner at agency DDB, which created the Love/Hate election campaign for Marmite, agrees: “We decided to create a spoof based around the election because everybody’s eyes were on it. You expect a few brands to jump on the bandwagon of an event like that; similarly with the World Cup.”

Unilever managing director for Marmite Matt Burgess adds: “Spoofing is an easy way to get attention, and that is what advertising is all about.”

As well as garnering column inches, spoofing can allow brands to associate themselves with the positioning and buzz of their chosen spoof subject, whether this be another company’s campaign or a famous personality.

We felt we could do the Orange Film Board spoofs as we had built up the right brand presence in the film and cinema category over time.

Spencer McHugh, Orange

A well-established creative moment that has stuck in the public’s mind can be spoofed to another brand’s advantage, suggests Richard Exon, chief executive of agency RKCR/Y&R. His agency was responsible for hotel chain Premier Inn’s recent television spots featuring comedian Lenny Henry which parodied films The Shining, Psycho and Oliver Twist. “If an idea has affected the population’s consciousness, it has media currency,” says Exon.

This is the theory behind The Sun newspaper’s TV ad, which imitates the advertising of Apple’s iPhone (see case study, below). Matt Tanter, senior planner for Glue London, the agency behind the creative, explains: “The key is to pick something that has been clearly etched into people’s minds. Apple advertising is so recognisable and iconic.”

Meanwhile, the high street optician Specsavers is using a spoof of the old Lynx “Billions” ad which shows a man pursued by gorgeous women. By awakening the latent consumer memories of a well-known raunchy ad, Specsavers, which does not operate in the most glamorous of market sectors, must hope to gain a level of sexiness by association.

Spoofs of this type must be original and clever enough to impress audiences, warn Tanter and Exon. If a new spoof does not offer style and originality, it will seem like a clumsy attempt to “drag onto another brand’s coattails”, says Exon; and Tanter adds: “You need to give it your own input to subvert the original. This adds something in your own right and delivers extra value to the audience.”

Spoofs can also be used effectively for inspiring consumer engagement or co-creation. This is arguably the reason that the political parties – often seen as divorced from the common people – have been so keen to embrace them. For example, the Liberal Democrats’ “Labservative” website, featuring a spoof manifesto for a party that mixes Labour and the Conservatives, invites people to post their own “mashed up” images of Labour and Conservative party members.

This co-created content has already garnered more than 46,000 views on YouTube and may inspire commercial brands to use consumer input more. “It may not be the most hard-hitting campaign, but it wins prizes for wit and originality,” says Mike Colling, managing director of marketing agency MC&C.

Iris’ Bainsfair argues that while spoofing can encourage co-creation, it should be remembered that this trend is not simply an effect of the political spoofs but part of a wider trend that has emerged on the back of companies communicating with consumers through online communities. “It is all connected to this new world of social media. People love being in a dialogue rather than just being talked at,” he says.

Another factor that has been important in spoofing’s becoming a well established tactic is YouTube. “Spoofs are a huge success on YouTube, because it enables anyone to be a writer or director,” says RKCR/Y&R’s Exon.

The Sun’s iPhone spoof ad was originally created to be just an online viral, and while it eventually ended up on TV, its initial online presence saw the newspaper connect with a new and younger audience.

Rob Painter, who is portfolio, strategy and planning director at News International but was The Sun’s interim marketing director at the time of the campaign, explains: “This viral enhanced wider activity we were doing at the time. We reached a new online audience because it proved very popular with under-35s. It set us apart as a clever, entertaining brand.”

If your whole campaign is based on spoofing, what are you then saying about your own brand? You are not saying much, and the point of advertising is to tell people what your brand stands for.

Rob Painter, News International

Meanwhile, Marmite aims to use YouTube to make its time-sensitive election spoof last long after today’s election. The consumer “vote” will culminate in the winning party’s manifesto being implemented – if the Hate party wins, Marmite will briefly be renamed “Tarmite”; if the Love party wins, a Marmite shrine will be built.

Spoofing has added an extra element to the way brands can leverage an association with real-life events, Marmite’s Burgess believes. “The nature of the internet has revolutionised how we talk to consumers. This has made all brands more responsive and nimble. I expect brands to become more ingenious in the way they bring everyday events into their advertising.”

But that does not mean there is a free ticket for all to jump on the spoofing bandwagon. A brand should only go down this road if it fits its overall brand tone. “You have to have the right heritage, background and tone for spoofing to sit right with consumers,” warns DDB’s Bundy.

He cites television channel E4 as a brand that has successfully used spoofing in its promotional slots – it too has spoofed Apple and the election.

“The way E4 spoofs different genres complements the overall brand’s tone, which it has maintained over the years. Because the audience knows to expect that tone, they can immediately get into it. However, if a campaign like this comes out of nowhere, people just get confused,” says Bundy.

Similarly, celebrity chef Jamie Oliver’s spoofs of country stereotypes to advertise his new “Jamie Does…” programme may work for the cheeky young cook, but might not have gone down so well if they had come from one of his more serious counterparts such as Gordon Ramsay.

Orange brand director Spencer McHugh believes the mobile operator has the right personality to spoof films and their associated actors in its Cinema Gold Spots. These show takeoffs of famous films, such as Home Alone and Die Hard, through productions made by the fictional Orange Film Board. The strategy has allowed the company to tell in an entertaining way what is essentially a dull message – asking cinemagoers to switch off their mobile phones – while strengthening its association with the film industry and further distinguishing Orange from its competitors.

“We felt we could do this kind of thing as we had built up the right brand presence in the film and cinema category over time,” says McHugh. “You have permission to be more playful if you are the right kind of brand. If not, you can come across as vindictive.”

Once a brand has established it has “earned” the right to spoof, it must also ensure its desire to spoof doesn’t override the most important thing – the brand message. For all the detail that went into creating a humorous election campaign parody, Unilever’s Burgess maintains that the Marmite brand message of nutrition remained paramount: “We still wanted to showcase that Marmite contains B vitamins. We paid a lot of attention to how that message came out. Hopefully, we struck the right balance as you can lose the message and be consumed by the conceit of the campaign.”

Companies must also remember that even if they get caught in a spoofing rollercoaster, the aims are the same as that of traditional marketing activity – driving brand awareness and, ultimately, sales. DDB’s Bundy confirms that the Marmite Love/Hate election campaign has also served to increase the brand’s customer database, as people who wish to “vote” must supply their email address.

For this reason, the creative idea development process must begin with the brand message; the idea for a spoof should come as secondary. Glue’s Tanter warns: “You can’t go into it thinking, ‘we want to do a spoof’. Starting with the brand message is how you end up injecting something new into it.” Orange’s McHugh agrees: “We didn’t originally set out to do spoofs, we just wanted to create something entertaining and engaging within the cinema theme.”

While spoofing can be the helping hand any brand needs to compete for consumer attention and engagement, its use must be limited. Despite Marmite building a whole campaign around spoofing, both Orange’s McHugh and The Sun’s Painter claim there is no value in over-relying on spoofing in marketing.

“We have always kept spoofing to a specific part of our marketing mix and we wouldn’t rely on it completely,” reveals McHugh. “The one area we use it in has been successful but our use of spoofing is rooted into a bigger strategic idea.”

Being a market category leader, as Painter proclaims The Sun to be, also makes spoofing less appropriate as the need to grab the public’s attention is not so urgent. He says the iPhone spoof formed part of a wider campaign that highlighted the wit of the newspaper’s headlines and the relevance of its columnists; and spoofing should always take place within a wider framework such as this.

“Spoofing can be a good tactic but I don’t believe it should be the centrepiece of the work,” says Painter. “If a whole campaign is based on spoofing, what are you then saying about your own brand? You are not saying much about yourself, and the point of advertising is to tell consumers what your brand stands for. It should be part of a number of pieces of communication that also talk about what you actually deliver. We have to talk credibly about what we provide our readers. We don’t always want to base our work on other brands.”

Highlighting other brands can be one of the downfalls of spoofing. A spoof piece can revive interest in the original brand, which won’t harm the brand doing the spoofing – unless it is poking fun at a rival brand.

This is when brands can land themselves in trouble, warns Painter: “If you are spoofing your competition you might just end up reinforcing their strengths.” He mentions last year’s Christmas campaign for Dixons, which parodied the snobbiness of the electrical offerings of high-end department stores. In some consumers’ eyes, the brand may have been highlighting what is good about its rivals.

Similarly, brands can see themselves summoned before the watchful regulators if spoofs are seen to cross the line into defamation. EasyJet found itself in this situation when it decided rival Ryanair was fair game. Its ads were banned by the ASA in March.

“It can be safer to spoof something that is unrelated to your brand,” says Painter. Referring back to The Sun’s iPhone spoof, he adds: “The iPhone is not an overt competitor. It’s not like we were spoofing The Mirror or The Daily Mail.”

As well as avoiding regulation problems, companies also need to keep an eye on how consumers are using spoofs of their campaigns. For the most part, claims RKCR/Y&R’s Exon, this is all positive stuff.

“It is great news for an advertiser when consumers spoof a campaign,” he says.

“Virgin Atlantic’s 25th anniversary ad featuring the hostesses walking through the airport has been spoofed a lot on YouTube. So have Marks & Spencer’s food ads. But this is a sign that the original brand has displayed leadership through powerful advertising. It’s an homage to their work.”

The less positive side of this is that spoofing can be used to highlight a brand’s faults, as was the case with Dove and Greenpeace. In 2008, Dove produced a campaign to highlight its use of  palm oil that it had classed as sustainable. The environmental activist group was quick to pounce on it, circulating a campaign that turned Dove’s message around to portray how its use of palm oil was destroying rainforests in Southeast Asia.

To the brand’s credit, its parent Unilever agreed to collaborate with Greenpeace and stop sourcing palm oil from the region, avoiding the public relations debacle that brands such as Toyota and Eurostar found themselves in earlier this year when they did not respond quick enough to consumers’ concerns.

So while this election has made spoofing a hot potato for ad campaigns, brands using such tactics should approach with caution. The political parties have attracted some criticism that they used spoofing because they had nothing original to say – something every brand hopes to avoid.

The spoof-happy mood of the past few months does, however, demonstrate that this can be a valuable technique to inspire interest among consumers. This is particularly true for anything involving crowdsourcing and user-generated content. But coming up with a joke that people not only understand but laugh at may still prove a too difficult task for the majority of companies to achieve.