A pair of mouse ears and a big castle – these are internationally recognized symbols that mean that you are about to watch an incredible movie or are heading to the happiest place on earth. We all know Disney, and many of us have gladly watched many of their films. What makes this company so successful and what can you learn from them when it comes to copywriting? Let’s take a look at this powerful and incredible company for some great copywriting inspiration!
Disney’s Four Foundational Copywriting Skills
Beloved by thousands worldwide, Disney had its early beginnings in the 1920s. Today, it has over 44 resort locations worldwide, hundreds of thousands of products, and is an all-time favorite kids’ and classic movies & animation producer. Let’s take a look at how this very successful company excels in web content.
1. Repurposing Content. If there is one thing any copywriter can see with Disney, it’s that they know how to repurpose content and get the most out of it. Some of the obvious repurposing is with classic fairy tales from the Brothers Grimm and Hans Christian Anderson. While the stories are a far cry from the debauched and terrifying original renditions, the stories still carry some of the same life lessons. In addition, Disney does repurpose their existing content to create great, new content. We get several fantastic films, television shows, and many other things from their repurposed content.
What can you learn from this? That repurposing content is possible and is a great idea! It helps you get the most out of your content without making you spend days and weeks on new content. While you won’t be repurposing it to be the next biggest blockbuster, you can still repurpose it for great revenue. Ways to repurpose your content could be to use chapters from e-books as blogs, turning blogs into infographics, and making videos of your existing content. Make sure to take a page from Disney, however, and make your repurposed content unique!
2. Learning from Others to Improve Content. One thing that has kept Disney relevant is how they always manage to change with the times. Often, Disney is one of the first companies to make large steps and if they aren’t the first, they make sure to adapt as quickly as possible. In an attempt to stay up-to-date with current trends, Disney released something known as Oh My Disney, which seems to be heavily inspired by the ever-popular Buzzfeed. This is great for Disney because while they are already quite successful, they know that they need to follow other successful business models to get a wider audience. Creating this site has given Disney fans the easy-to-consume articles everyone loves with Buzzfeed, but with the best flair possible – Disney flair.
This shows how vital it is to learn from the trends and improve your content to match them. Buzzfeed is a great place for inspiration to show just how people want their content delivered. Yes, people like longer pieces, but they also enjoy reading those fun “You Know You’re a 90s Kid When” posts. Creating something that meets the trends and is easily shared on social media is important for content nowadays, and Disney jumped on that trend quickly. Take the time to research trends and how they will work with your business. Make any necessary changes to have an incredibly successful content marketing campaign.
3. Epic Social Media Strategy. On top of following the latest trends to improve their content, Disney also has an incredible social media strategy. They have a great presence on Vine, YouTube, and Pinterest, giving fans the ability to look at various forms of social content. On Vine, the company encourages people to create videos for a contest to be featured on the Vine channel, which is excellent advertisement. They also provide great pins for followers on Pinterest such as Disney foods, fun images, and great holiday inspiration.
This is an excellent suggestion for other businesses and shows just how effective a great strategy can be. While the company is quite large, they take opportunities to make their fans and followers feel a connection with them. This is a great idea for any company, large or small, giving you the chance to talk with clients and make them feel appreciated. You can have people submit videos for contests, or you can create a collaboration board on Pinterest. Whatever you do, make sure your audience feels connected to you with your social media campaign.
You can also learn from some of their social media blunders. In the article referenced above, the writer points out that Disney doesn’t have the strongest presence on places such as Facebook and Twitter, which require more one on one communication. Take a look at their strategy on those sites and see if there is anything you think you should avoid doing.
4. Winners in the Storytelling Field. Another great form of copywriting done by Disney is their ability to tell stories. No matter what it is, this company knows how to get people involved in their films, shows, and parks. It is obvious they tell stories in their films, but the instant you walk into a Disney theme park, you are transported from one world to another and every inch is filled with stories. Their campaigns all have story elements to them, and when they talk about their founder Walt Disney, they always share it in story format. Disney knows that one of the most powerful and effective tools out there is storytelling.
You can do the same with your content campaigns. Telling stories is a great way to connect with your audiences, and give them something entertaining. Your story can be about an experience you had, how your company started, or any other idea you have. It doesn’t need to start with “once upon a time” or “in a galaxy far, far away” to be powerful.
Take a few of these ideas from Disney and apply them to your own content strategy! You might not get to the juggernaut size of the Disney Corporation, but you can still build and improve your company following their strategy. Who knows, in the end, maybe you’ll be able to team up with someone as powerful as Darth Vader.
Social media engagement is not only vital to your content marketing, but it can also be extremely fun. When you get people commenting on your posts, re-tweeting your content, and sharing your Facebook posts, you might go ahead & do a little jig. Social media engagement is what can propel you from just another business to a viral sensation, as we’ve all watched over the last few years. But how do you get great social media engagement that not only brings people to your website, but also helps you on the road to viral content? Let’s take a quick look at a few quick copywriting hacks that can help you out!
1. Follow The Four C’s. Isn’t it nice when someone not only gives you some great tips, but also gives you an easy way to remember the tips? Well, Buffer does just that with a great blog post about driving more social media engagement. What are the four C’s? They are:
Clear
Concise
Compelling
Credible
Let’s unpack this for a bit. What does it mean to post clear, concise, compelling, and credible content on social media? It means that you need to make sure your audience knows what you are talking about, but you need to keep it short. Longer posts on social media might get your post skipped over, and Twitter doesn’t allow for lengthy posts! You also need to have content that is compelling so that you get shares, likes, and comments – engagement. Credible content is vital no matter what content it is; this will help keep you as a trusted source, instead of one that people question.
2. Name A Problem And Solve It. Another great way to drive engagement is to name a problem that is common for your readership, and answer or solve it. When you state the problem, make sure to agitate it a bit before solving it. This can get more people to read your post. You don’t want to give too much away, but this is a great opportunity to get your social media content shared, which can bring in more clients.
3. Follow The Four U’s. In the same Buffer article I mentioned in point one, another great formula is the four U’s. Again, this is a great way to remember an important and helpful formula and is great when you go about crafting a Twitter post. Just what are these U’s? Let’s take a look!
Useful: If you don’t tweet something useful to your followers, you are likely to be skipped and not receive much engagement.
Urgent: Urgency on social media can really help get the clicks and shares from your clients.
Unique: You want to make sure you stand out from your competitors, so offer something unique that people will enjoy seeing.
Ultra-specific: Being specific can really help with writing Twitter posts. Specific posts can help you stay within or below the 140-character limit.
4. Curate Some Incredible Content. Social Media Today says that when it comes to driving engagement on social media, you need to make sure you are curating some great content for your various channels. You want to keep things fresh and interesting for your viewers, which is why content curation is key to having a successful campaign. Consider having a bookmark folder of great content ideas for your social media campaign. This helps you keep it all together in one, organized location.
5. Use Those Memes. When it comes to social media, you have to make sure you are staying up on the latest trends. This means, don’t hesitate to use memes. If you take a quick glance at your Facebook or Twitter feed, you will see that many people seem to enjoy memes quite a lot. You can create your own by finding meme generators or using stock images for your own quotes or jokes. People like to share images, and you will find that you get more engagement on images than on posts without any pictures.
6. Make Customer Involvement Easy As 1-2-3. When you have something such as a giveaway, make sure it is easy for your customers to get involved. You don’t want to have them jump through numerous hoops to get to the place they want to be simply because they are likely to leave. If you encourage people to follow you on social media for an entry into the giveaway, you might see that you get an increase in social engagement and more people following and sharing your items.
7. Give Shout Outs To Customers. One thing that sets social media apart from any other form of marketing is how you can make it personal, according to Social Media Examiner. You don’t have to get chummy with people, but simply by doing something such as giving a shout out to a customer can really boost your engagement. A shout out is simply just mentioning your client by name or Twitter handle, and thanking them. You will find more people are willing to use your company if they see that you are willing to talk to or give a shout out for others. When you give a shout out, make sure you do something that isn’t too generic. Give it a personal, friendly feel!
8. Hold Live-Streamed Google Hangouts. Another way you might be able to increase engagement is to live-stream your various Google Hangouts you have with clients or coworkers. You can give a talk on a particular subject, linking to a live video of your discussion. When you do this, make sure that people know that they can send in their questions if you want to encourage discussion. This can be a great way for customers to ask important questions and get a live, personal answer from you!
9. Use Quality Images And Videos. Quality is not just for written content but is also for image and video content, as well. According to Jeff Bullas, high-quality images can help you stand out from your competition. A great way to make sure you have high-quality images and videos is to hire someone who has skills in those areas. Sometimes, you may need to hire a third party, but there are times where you can hire individuals to work in your office or for your company. People are more likely to engage and share your photos and videos if they are of a higher quality than many of the things they see shared around the web.
10. Interact With Your Clients. When you are trying to promote engagement, you should also make sure that you are interacting with your clients and followers. You could have several people commenting, liking and sharing, but that will eventually dwindle if you do not respond to people. You can simply like various posts, but it is a great idea to comment to the individual, letting them know you have read and appreciated their comment.
Another great way to interact with your clients is to go to their favorite websites to find things that interest them. You can do this by sending out a survey or through reading different research blogs about various demographics. Once you have found these resources, you can start crafting some excellent social content that will produce some incredible engagement with your clients.
11. Have A Sense Of Humor. Don’t be afraid to use that funny bone! Of course, you need to be careful with your humor, but it can be a great mechanism to get people to engage with you. The world is filled with enough sadness, making many people appreciate humorous posts. You should always make sure your humorous posts are in good taste, and consider your social media posts and what they say after large, tragic events. A few key things to remember with humor are:
Research and know your audience before you make a humorous post.
Make sure the joke is obvious to your followers.
Never, ever offend people.
Hire someone who is incredibly hilarious to write your humorous social posts.
Utilize pop culture to create jokes and humorous social posts that will be shared by followers.
12. Reward Your Clients For Social Engagement. In his article mentioned in point nine, Jeff Bullas says that a great way to produce engagement is to reward your fans. As I discussed earlier, you can do shout outs, comment on your posts in response to clients, and do basic interaction with them. However, you can always go above and beyond, which will help maintain your clients, keeping them happy. For example, take a look at Adagio Teas. Clients get “frequent cup” points to put towards free tea from the company if they mentioned the company on Twitter, share a tea review on Facebook, and other forms of promotional marketing for the company. It’s free for both Adagio and clients, and the clients get a great reward. Who wouldn’t want free tea?
13. Keep Things Interesting And Diverse. You don’t want to keep posting the same posts every day; you will want to shake things up. In the post by Social Media Today mentioned in point four, the writer suggests that you keep your social posts interesting and diverse by adding humor, memes, links to your site, and anything else that works for your company. This will help maintain interest in your social posts, and promote more engagement for you.
Social Media Engagement Success: In Closing
By using these great copywriting hacks, you will find that you have a more successful social media campaign. Not only will these drive engagement, but they will also boost your website’s traffic and help bring in some great revenue! Try these out and see just how much they help you on the road to success.
No matter your taste in films, you’ve probably heard of Quentin Tarantino. Born in Tennessee, he wrote, acted, produced, directed, even created the soundtracks, and edited more than 23 films. He won two Oscars, two Academy Awards, two Golden Globes, two BAFTA Awards, over 100 more awards, and was nominated 97 times. His movies are jam packed with violence, non-linear storylines, and, of course, epic soundtracks. This star is a prime example of how using epic copywriting can boost your views, show people who you really are, and create a dedicated fan base.
Just what is this five-finger punch to the heart? Can only the Bride do it, or is this something you can learn and create some killer content ready to make audiences laugh, cry, or maybe squirm? Let’s take a look at what you can learn about copywriting from a Tarantino film.
Retro Is Always In – Use Something Familiar in Your Copywriting
Cue the seventies disco and begin imagining yourself walking down the streets of California in an awesome seventies suit and tie. In the nineties, this sure was a surprise because many people thought that the seventies were just a thing of the past. In fact, many kids and teenagers thought the seventies were oh-so-boring until Tarantino made seventies fashion and music an absolutely amazing plot piece in his most well known film Pulp Fiction. Just why was this successful? Tarantino used something that was still known, and familiar to audiences. He wasn’t trying to reach out to young audiences, but to those who were in their twenties and older, and he succeeded.
This is important to your copywriting because you want your audience to feel comfortable with your content. You will find that it is much easier if you utilize familiar items in your marketing pitches because people will be more likely to click on a link to something that sounds familiar than something they’ve never heard of before. You don’t have to go all retro-glam with some disco playing on your site. Just simply focus on utilizing a few popular memes, work in familiar aspects of your product, or just anything that you know audiences can and will connect with.
Details, Details, Details
The one consistent truth of any Tarantino film is that each time you watch it, you will find something new. The stories are incredibly intricate with several tie-ins and references. It is easy to lose sight of all of the details when watching, but they’re still there and they make each viewing enjoyable and just as exciting as the first view. This is because Tarantino pays extremely close attention to details.
This is one of the reasons his films take a while to be released because he works on them in script form to get every detail, and works further throughout filming and post-development. He wants to make sure audiences have the best experience, and no one can say that he doesn’t succeed at this. Just watch Kill Bill: Volume One a few times in a row and see what new things you notice in each viewing.
Many times, you might feel like you can just write rather generic blogs and web content, but this might be something that hinders you from making sales. Sure, people aren’t always keen on Tolkien-like detail, but people do want a bit more information that many companies give. However, the details for your copywriting shouldn’t only be focused on the words, but every aspect of your social media campaigns, your web layout, and any other details that could impact your content. In fact, user experience is a major part of how someone views your content. You can have the best content out there, but if your clients’ experience isn’t a great one, they will leave quickly.
Audiences Like To Be Shocked And Entertained
While Tarantino focuses on several familiar aspects of films and trends, he also shocks his audiences. This can be through simple story re-telling like Inglourious Basterds or by cutting an ear off in the best way possible such as the scene in Reservoir Dogs. In fact, that particular scene is one that makes everyone cringe; yet the surprising fact is that you never actually see it happen. He blends suspense perfectly with his amazingly written scripts, causing everyone who views his films to feel something no matter what it is. He understands that people don’t just want to be shocked though, he knows that they want to be entertained, which is why his films have some of the best soundtracks out there.
Now, when you start writing your content, you don’t have to go to the extreme of cutting off an ear; that would be a little much for your company! However, you can still do various things to shock and entertain your readers and clients. When you shock your clients, make sure it is with things that they will find enjoyable, not something that will overwhelm them. A simple way to shock and entertain is to offer freebies with a service, but not just any freebie.
You can give away something that is much bigger than a pen with a name on it, maybe an e-book or an extra product to try. This is likely to shock your clients, and it will bring some pretty great success into your business. In fact, you might find that your clients are more than willing to buy more items from you after receiving great freebies. Entertaining your clients is also important, but I discuss this in the next point.
Don’t Be A Square – Share Some Corny Jokes
One of the things that really helps set Tarantino apart from other similar directors is the fact that he loves corny jokes. There’s the obvious one that Mia Wallace from Pulp Fiction says about the tomato needing to “ketchup.” He also does subtler jokes that are more one-liners, a look between actors, or making a cameo himself. Fans love this and it is something you will always hear about if someone describes the latest Tarantino flick they viewed.
This shows that using humor in various content situations is actually quite a great idea! People love humor, and we need more humor nowadays. You might be wary to use humor in your content, but it is very possible and a great idea if you use it correctly. It is a great way to break the ice, entertain, and bring clients in and it can also be a great way to convert visitors when they visit your site.
In The End, Own It, Be It, And You’ll Win It
Outside of all of these points, the thing that really sets Tarantino apart as an expert copywriter is that he owns his work strongly. His confidence helps to set various movies apart as being modern classics and, in the end, he wins at copywriting and film writing all at once. What will you take from Tarantino to apply in your copywriting campaigns?
In 2005, audiences were greeted with an incredibly over-the-top show about supernatural happenings. This show, aptly named Supernatural wasn’t really one that had a lot of critical success in the beginning, but that soon changed. The show’s producers and show runners just wanted to make sure they made it to season 5, to wrap up the incredible “end of the world” story they started. However, they soon found out that fans were slowly attaching themselves to the show, and it grew from there.
Eventually, the show became a major success amongst loyal fans and found new fans via the ever-popular Netflix. But, how did Supernatural attract these fans? And how is the show still growing their fan base? I am going to take a look at this, as well as how much you can learn from this show to apply to your own copywriting campaigns!
They Are Involved In Social Media
One thing that this show does very well is utilizing social media to spread news about it, and engage with their fan base. Oftentimes, you see only a handful of show stars participating on social media, and many times they are secondary characters. This isn’t a bad thing, but by having the lead stars tweeting to fans and live tweeting the show, Supernatural has created an incredible presence on social media. Each night the show airs, Jared Padalecki (Sam Winchester), Mark Sheppard (Crowley), and Misha Collis (Castiel) will live tweet the entire show, engaging with fans and telling stories. They’ve had several incredible moments with social media promotion, as well as some interesting moments from fans, including the hilarious Mishapocalypse that took over Tumblr.
What can you learn from Supernatural’s spooky ability at utilizing social media? People really enjoy knowing that there is a person behind a social account. Many fans follow the show’s Twitter account, but many prefer the actors because they get a personalized view of the show. While you don’t have to live tweet your work day, you can utilize how the actors and show runners handle social media by being personal with your followers, opening up dialogue, and having fun. You can always keep it professional, but consider showing your personality and letting people connect with the person behind the Twitter handle.
The CW Knows How To Market It To Their Audience
Supernatural makes its home on the CW channel, and it is quite obvious that the channel knows how to market to their audience. The audience is different for each show such as Vampire Diaries or Supernatural, making it vital that they reach people where they are at in order to not lose interest. When it comes to Supernatural, they advertise the most on Tumblr where their loyal fan base spends a majority of their time. This is also a great opportunity for them to reach out to others who haven’t watched the show, yet spend their time on the social site. The CW knows that in order to reach and market to a Millennial crowd, they have to meet them where they are at and that, sadly, isn’t in the dusty pages of a newspaper.
The same is true for you; you need to know your audience and you absolutely need to market to them and where they are. You might not be marketing to Millennials, but you can still learn where your demographic spends the majority of their time. This includes social media, but also whether or not your audience is one that reads press releases, white papers or other sources of information you have available.
They Utilize The Familiar And Give It A Supernatural Twist
Something that many new and old fans enjoy about the show is that they take something familiar and add their own twist to it. For example, vampires and werewolves; they take the original folklore of these monsters, and then add a difference to them to make them adapt to the world of the Winchester brothers. No matter the story, the writers of Supernatural give it a great flair while also making sure to stay true to what audience’s find familiar.
How can this inspire your copywriting? You can simply make sure to keep your content familiar. This will be a great way to make sure your content doesn’t stink, as well as giving people something to engage with. This goes for blogs, web content, and social media. Be familiar to attract people to your posts, but add your own flair to it to make it unique to you. This will help make you more memorable to clients and can help you bring in more clients and revenue.
One way that you can make sure to stay familiar is to host a giveaway of one of your products. Giveaways are vastly popular right now, and people love winning things; I know that I love when I win a giveaway! You can make a giveaway purely you very easily, yet it is familiar enough to bring in current customers, as well as new clients. In fact, the giveaway might just be what converts your website visitors to buyers.
Cliffhangers and Copywriting: They Keep You Coming Back For More
The show is now in its tenth season. That’s right, tenth! How did they get so far when they only recently met success? They made fans desperate to know what happens next. They do this through the classic cliffhangers that end shows for the season, but they also utilize internal cliffhangers throughout the season. Will Sam go dark-side? When will Crowley come in with some crazy, yet genius idea? They make fans ask these questions regularly, which is why the fans keep coming back for more.
Guess what, you can use internal cliffhangers too! You can use them in your copywriting to make people desperate to read what is coming next. This is a great way to ensure that your readers will not only read a small portion of your blog, web content, or social post but that they will read the entirety of it. Utilizing internal cliffhangers will help you craft great storytelling pieces, as well as make your content relevant to readers. Take a leaf out of Supernatural’s book and attempt to utilize internal cliffhangers in your content.
Until Next Time
Supernatural is not only a show that you can enjoy on a dark, spooky October night; it is also a show filled with excellent copywriting inspiration. Do you plan to use anything you’ve learned from this show to craft excellent content in the future?
There is no shortage of studies attesting the crucial importance brand awareness has in swaying a consumer’s choice towards one product or another. We form the deepest attachments to products that speak to us on a personal level and a brand is supposed to do just that, to spark positive associations in our mind and encourage us to relate to it on a deeply personal level.
Even though there are fewer consensuses as to what makes a successful brand, many people in the industry would agree it hinges on nailing copywriting. And the best way to do that is to learn from the best.
So, without further ado, let’s have a look at 4 brands that totally nailed copywriting and at the strategies they used in some of their most effective campaigns.
1. Apple: Think Different
Apple’s iconic “Think Different” campaign serves to illustrate the importance of finding a strong central concept and building around it. Once you hit upon that core concept that you feel perfectly sums up your company’s identity and values, everything falls into place.
The 1997 campaign kicked off with an ad featuring short clips of influential 20th century figures, including the likes of Albert Einstein, Martin Luther King, Mahatma Gandhi, John Lennon or Pablo Picasso. The clips were accompanied by a voice-over commentary, read by Richard Dreyfuss, celebrating these people as rebellious, anti-establishment figures, whose boldness and insubordination brought about revolutionary change in the world. The ad ends with a small Apple logo at the end and the slogan “Think different” – the only clue as to what it is actually about.
It was followed by a series of black-and-white posters of the personalities featured in the ad (and other iconic figures), with the same logo and slogan. It is worth noting that neither the ad, nor the posters, gives any clue as to the identity of the people they represent. The viewer is expected to recognize them and, through that recognition, is encouraged to feel a sense of community with them. Through this campaign Apple effectively put across the notion that the company was at the forefront of a paradigm-shifting movement, providing a niche product that only the most discerning consumers would appreciate.
Another important lesson we can derive from this is that sharing cultural allusions can enhance the viewer’s sense of community and affinity with a particular brand, while implicitly commending him for being cultured enough to “get it”.
2. Macy’s: Believe
While Macy’s has the advantage that comes with a long-standing prestige brand, it’s been doing a great job of playing up the nostalgia factor, most notably through its running “Believe” campaign and its iconic “The Magic of Macy’s: 150 Years” ad.
Both were launched in 2008, when Macy’s celebrated its 150 anniversary. The “Believe” is based on the famous “Yes, Virginia, there is a Santa Claus” editorial, published by the editor of the New York Sun in response to a letter from an eight-year-old girl who asked if Santa is real. Macy’s declared December 6 National Believe Day and, every year since 2008, it has invited “believers” to drop off their letters to Santa in the vintage-looking Santa Mail letterboxes awaiting them at any Macy’s store. And here is where the “Magic of Macy’s” comes in: the company vowed to donate $1 to Make-A-Wish, for every letter received, to grant the wishes of children with life-threatening medical conditions. Not only is this a great way to spread the holiday cheer, but it’s also a surefire way to boost your social responsibility credentials.
The ad the company used to promote the “Believe” campaign exploits its association with Miracle on 34th Street, hardly surprising, as what the campaign proposed to do was to bank on Macy’s nostalgia capital. Its “The Magic of Macy’s: 150 Years” ad, featuring mentions of Macy’s in popular culture and evoking its involvement in the life of the community (the annual Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade, organized since 1924, and its contribution to the annual 4th of July fireworks display), served a similar purpose, reinforcing its association with solid American values.
3. Target: Around for Good
While Target has a consistent history of developing original campaigns, the freshly launched “Around for Good” is its first ever campaign to focus on the company’s commitment to the community and to the environment. Through human interest, documentary-style ads like It Comes from the Heart, Target evokes ways it gives back to the community, through the programs it runs in schools and elsewhere. In the words of vice president Jeff Jones, the campaign is meant to build “brand love” and make buyers feel “they’re part of something bigger than a transaction”. This campaign, which “isn’t trying to sell you anything”, ties in neatly with the marketing strategy practiced through its online magazine, A Bullseye View, which is to focus on “behind the scenes” and lifestyle stories, rather than product pitches. This, in turn, is part of a wider trend in brand building, turning from old-school advertising to an approach that emphasizes the personal and social responsibility dimension.
4. Newcastle Brown Ale: Independence Eve
While Apple, Macy’s and Target resorted to high-brow cultural allusion, nostalgia and the human interest element, Newcastle Brown Ale’s distinctive ingredients are humor and self-irony. Its “Independence Eve” and “If We Made It” campaigns are excellent examples of clever, tongue-in-cheek copywriting. The “Independence Eve” campaign, launched this year, promoted the Newcastle Brown Ale brand to an American market by “hijacking” the momentum building around the Fourth of July and inviting people to join them in celebrating the alternative, entirely made-up, Independence Eve, on July 3. Alternatively promoted under the #IfWeWon hashtag, the campaign urges people to “imagine how great it could have been and imagine how much beer we could have sold. If we won.” In a series of hilarious spoof ads, featuring Brits Elizabeth Hurley and Stephen Merchant and American thespian Zachary Quinto, Newcastle Brown Ale revisits American trademarks and celebrates “all things British that Americans gave up when they signed the Declaration of Independence”. However, with tongue-in-cheek taglines like “If Britain had won the war, English Muffins would just be called ‘muffins’ and French Fries wouldn’t be spoken of” and “If the Brits ran this country, you would have one less reason to go to whichever Dakota Mount Rushmore is in”, good-humoredly poking fun at the Brits and Americans alike, it would be very hard to take offence at this campaign.
What Newcastle Brown Ale did through this campaign was to align itself with the finest tradition of British humor, which manages to strike a perfect balance between cheeky and self-deprecating, while tapping into the American public’s increasing fascination with all things British, from the British accent to British TV shows.
The same distinctive humor comes across in their “If We Made It” ad series, Newcastle Brown Ale’s spoof on the Super Bowl ads, as well as on the company’s Facebook page, with a cover picture that says “The Newcastle Facebook Place: Your Place to Complain About Our Ads”.
To sum up, while top-notch copywriting comes in many flavors, these brands nailed it by creating their own distinctive flavor and identifying the ingredients best suited to bring out that flavor, whether it’s the equivalent of a high-end Asian fusion sushi bar, chestnuts roasted on an open fire, or English muffins with a side of British humor.
