Smells like woodchip, tastes like…
No one knows better how hard it is to keep a secret in advertising than the AAR’s Martin Jones. The secret reviews he assists with often quickly become public knowledge once he has told an agency which advertiser is searching for an agency.
This time however, the AAR excelled itself in its quest to keep the cat in the bag. In fact, it was so good at keeping the secret that the cat probably starved to death before anyone thought to let it out – if it was a cat in there in the first place.
The AAR sent out a false brief asking agencies to demonstrate their experience of working with electrical or furniture retailers, and how much work they had done for franchises. Jones says: “It was great, we started rumours that Comet and Courts were reviewing.”
Who did this top-secret advertiser turn out to be? That well-known electrical/furniture retailer KFC. And to think the Diary thought that KFC had stopped mixing sawdust and wire with the chicken in its food!
