When Cole, Russel & Pryce in Stockholm sent out their (e)mailers to advertise themselves and their new website, they probably didn't expect their own clients would have a cow over their creative ideas.
The campaign - perhaps a homage to the National Lampoons "If You Don't Buy This Magazine We'll Kill This Dog" cover - consisted of emailalerts at first, depicting this adorable little lamb, asking people to visit CR&P's homepage "for the sake of the lamb".....
The next day, people received another email, this time showing the lamb lacking a front-hoof - the very same day 90 chosen colleagues and clients received a real lamb hoof in a box delivered to their offices.
Soon, the advertising world of Sweden turned into a zoo, when the tradepress reported about the unusual mailer, more than a hundred people commented, some loving the idea - "I'm suddenly very popular among the ad agency dogs, Thanks CR&P" said one - other hating it with as much vitriol as they could muster.
The noise of the storm reached clients ears, and soon the cash cow client Vodafone and the 'golden egg' pro-bono client Djurens Rätt (animal rights) asked to 'have words' with their agency.
"That campaign showed incredibly bad judgement" said Lena Eklund at Vodafone according to Resume. "Of course we wondered if something like that might happen again, and how the agency could assure us that it wouldn't. We are very pleased that they acted so fast."
Eva Söderström, press manager at Djurens Rätt said: "It's pretty obvious what we think of that campaign."
What the agency did to appease the clients Vodaphone and Djurens Rätt was to fire the Creative Director, founder and part owner of the agency, Olle Sjödén effective immediately. The agency also said to Resume that the campaign has felt like "Olles thing" from the start, and when it caused such an outrage, the easiest way out was to let Sjödén take the responsibility for it, and go.
From the many angry comments at the Resumé article about the chopped off hoof, one gathers people were most mad about the fact it had nothing to do with the site, and the site wasn't up to the stunts standard.
So remember that kids, next time you get a little photoshop happy and gather some butcher waste to mail out to clients, there should be a point - a message if you will - to your wacky stunt, and not just as Paul Arden always says "a cleverly placed fart", as the latter may turn around and bite you.
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It's somewhat appropriate I keep reading "CR&P" as "CRAP".
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PermalinkIs this a case of "hoof in mouth" disease?
sorry...
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Permalinkhehehe, bring on the mad cow and farmyard puns, this post is practically begging for it. ;9
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PermalinkMick Born clarifies that 500 friends and clients got a simple text message via email. 90 people got a mail with the image of the cute lamb, and later 12 carefully chosen people friends/colleagues received the DM with the butcher-waste hoof.
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PermalinkOnly twelve people got the hoof and for this Olle gets the boot? Even more CR&P then, they're barely even trying to reach many people - although with all this hubub about it they have!
I noticed that Stiv Haul wrote about it over at Marketingwonk. /jk
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Permalinktsssk, funny, blueblue. ;))
I reckon the lame number of send outs was precisely as not to spend much, nor actually do much, but the idea was "just the right kind of shocking" to end up in a article in the trade press, this getting more visitors to their site than ever for the price of three lambs hoofs at the nearest butcher - great idea! So they did it, rang the press, bragged abut it in vague terms, and forgot that their most 'creative' pro-bono client Djurens vänner [animals rights] might actually read the tradepress - not to mention object to this kind of stunt..... The idea shouldn't even have left the wastebin at the office, much less be published at Resume, where the usually bile filled comments and sarcasm ripped it to shreds in minutes, and overhyped it so much the bubble burst and Olle got canned. Talk about backfire, when all they probably wanted to do was ride the wave of free press.
Youknow what would be a really good twist on this? If this whole stunt brought more paying members to Djurens Vänner - so many seem to be feeling bad for the cute lamb I wouldn't be suprised if it did!
Vodafone must be a rather fat cat client, as when they object to some steaks feet being sent out (lets face it, lamb is a really common meat on dinnertables in Sweden, and we are only talking about three lambs here, not thousands) they can get the agencies Creative Director fired in a jiffy. To me this spells out s p i n e l e s s at CR&P as well as clueless, what kind of agency is that who can't defend and stand for work they do, regardless of for whom? As a client I would walk for the latter, not the former - as basically they just put a seal of approval on "we know not what we do, but we charge per hour and 15% commision on it". Talk about bad branding.
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PermalinkJäklar, ta inte i så att du spricker, vännen.
You speaka the truth Ms 'Wapling' ----- [*ducks*]
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PermalinkOne word: Ewe.
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PermalinkBaa-aa-aaastards!
(*drumsnare-kaching*)
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PermalinkSo they fired the creative director?
No great loss, as this was a lamb idea.
sorry, lame.
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Permalink.best.pun.ever.
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PermalinkThey sure rammed themselves into a corner.
Wouldn't have been quite as horrid if they had hacked off the hooves of a plush sheep...probably would have been more pleasent for the receivers.
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Permalink......makes no difference - the agency really shot themselves in the foot with this one. To even think of the idea when they had the animal rights client is, well, daft.
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Permalinkhow embarrassing, I didn't know a female sheep was an ewe.
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PermalinkResume headlines today with the story that Olle Sjöden just got a new job, an old job sortof, back at an agency where he used to work, namely Brindfors in Stockholm.
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PermalinkAS what? The agency chef? "have hoof, will cook."
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