06 Pot Noodle

4/2/05

3:00 pm

Page 1

POT NOODLE

HIGHLY COMMENDED
HHCL / Red Cell

Campaigns for established product brands (over 2m)

sponsor: Millward Brown

The Slag of all Snacks

This case shows how planning saw the need to free Pot Noodle from its self-obsessed world of subversive irreverence. Bringing lapsed users back to Pot Noodle required the brand to have a strong opinion about its role in the modern food world. Having uncovered the truth that its trashy a wider perspective on the lives of lapsed users allowed us to re-frame this trashiness as illicit pleasure.

Planned by: Andy Davies Agency: HHCL/Red Cell Client: Unilever Bestfoods Pot Noodle

06 Pot Noodle

4/2/05

3:00 pm

Page 2

POT NOODLE

New owners with big plans

Pot Noodle is the first food many people prepare for themselves. As such it is a potent symbol of independence from parental control. With a personality other youth brands would kill for bold, irreverent, subversive, it is an icon for young people. Buoyed by having such a potent brand in their portfolio, new owners Unilever Bestfoods set the ambitious growth target of doubling the size of the brand in five years.
Yesterdays brand

Until 1997 Pot Noodle had the market to itself. Then Supernoodle re-launched, shifting from a side of plate accompaniment to being a foody nosh snack. Supported by salient, funny advertising that captured the imagination of the important 16-24s, Supernoodle grew dramatically. The brand was newer, fresher and seemingly more in tune with the times than Pot Noodle. The world had changed radically from the days of crappy rehydrated foods. To the slightly older eater, using a saucepan and eating a product with less MSG and a few more food values was more in tune with both the times and where they were up to in life. Supernoodle had effectively repositioned Pot Noodle as yesterdays brand, threatening our iconic status at the heart of youth culture.
A personality in search of a proposition

This drift of Pot Noodle towards being yesterdays brand had happened as a result of advertising campaigns over the years doing a great job at fueling personality, but to the exclusion of a core truth which defined a role for the brand. Pot Noodle had become obsessed with its personality it was locked in a world of its own subversive irreverence. A sort of brand autism. Meanwhile consumers were moving on to a more relevant brand. It became clear that communication desperately needed a backbone to help the brand regain a role and contemporary relevance in young peoples lives. If we could apply our irreverent personality to a truth about the brand, the result would be an idea that would be difficult to ignore.
An opinion was critical to meeting the challenge

An opinion is useful to create an impact in todays over-saturated communication world. Expressing a strong opinion about yourself or your role in the world can help communication work more effectively. An opinion cuts through, gets a reaction and causes debate. The conversations that the brand starts are then carried on, and the message gets amplified.

06 Pot Noodle

4/2/05

3:00 pm

Page 3

POT NOODLE

Trying to win back occasional/lapsing users, from a more modern relevant brand in tune with the times (Supernoodle), to a brand they probably started eating as a sign of rebellion when they were thirteen, was going to be tough. Pot Noodle needed to have a strong opinion about itself and its role in a world of food that had moved on. Despite having its problems, Pot Noodle is incredibly successful. Five pots are sold every second. By rights its dehydrated format should have meant it died out years ago along with Smash and Vesta curries. And yet it still thrives. An earlier semiotic study had uncovered an inherent wrongness and a willful perversity in the brand. This suggested that Pot Noodle could be knowingly flying in the face of modern food trends and healthy eating. All of this gave us confidence that somewhere, within this brand, was a strong opinion about its relevance and role in the current world. We just needed to uncover what it was.
Loyalists were unhelpful

When looking to understand what your brand is all about, conventional wisdom says you turn to your loyalists. Typified by students, the life of a Pot Noodle loyalist revolves around drinking, clubbing, taking drugs, shagging and sleeping. Everything else has to fit in around that including food. Pot Noodle is brilliant for them. It is quick, hot and tasty. It requires no thought, no effort and no washing up. Although it was encouraging to find the brand playing such an important role in their lives, we didnt find it very useful for uncovering an opinion about its role in the wider food world. Users just accepted Pot Noodle for what it was to theman ultra-convenient snack. And convenience isnt much of an opinion. To define a role in the world of contemporary food we needed to talk to those who were more heavily influenced by this world our lapsing marginal consumers (rather than our loyalists who hadnt yet moved into it).
Lapsing users reveal the shocking truth

Brand essence research told us Pot Noodle had two competitive strengths over Supernoodles: Its an all-consuming eat It makes no pretence to be anything other than artificial To core users this was part of why they loved the brand. However, to lapsing users this was seen as its weakness. It reflected the fact that to them Pot Noodle was trashy an experience that left them with feelings of dirtiness and guilt.
3

06 Pot Noodle

4/2/05

3:00 pm

Page 4

POT NOODLE

That trash has no place in my world

Occasional/lapsing users have typically reached a stage in their lives where they like to portray an image of nest building and meaningful relationships. They are a few years out of college and altogether more grown up now. Gone are the days of one-night stands and pissed-up weekends with their mates. Supernoodle fits (better than Pot Noodle) with this lifestage. They still had the need for quick tasty snacks, but something a bit less trashy and that required some level of cooking was more in tune with where they were up to in life. That was the theory at least.
Exposing their dirty secret

There appeared to be a contradiction they were judging Pot Noodle to be trashy, and yet they indulged in other trashy behaviour quite happily TV, tabloids, celebrity gossip. What was different about Pot Noodle? They saw Pot Noodles trashiness as being associated with a whole unhealthy lifestyle that was in their past now. Pot Noodle symbolised a lifestyle they wanted to think they had moved beyond. And yet behind this mask of adult respectability, further conversation revealed that they were not sure they were quite ready for this grown up world. They still craved aspects of their old lifestyle nights out on the piss, illicit snogs (or more) on a night out. As they opened up they revealed occasional lapses. All the more precious now life had moved on, they were reported with obvious pleasure. These people still had, and gave into, their baser urges. They just kept them under wraps most of the time. A similar pattern emerged of their occasional lapses back into Pot Noodle. Often on the same occasions (the end of a big night), or perhaps home alone one evening when they wouldnt be judged for it. They were slightly embarrassed to say that they still really enjoyed indulging in them as they had once used to. They knew they were trashy, that their diets were supposed to have moved on, and yet when the desire struck nothing else could quite satisfy the craving. This wider understanding of lapsing users gave us our breakthrough. Pot Noodle was being used and enjoyed in a similar way to other illicit experiences which they had tried to consign to their past. It represented an illicit pleasure something they knew that they shouldnt still enjoy, but secretly they craved and gave into once in a while. The opportunity for advertising was clear to celebrate the illicit pleasure of a Pot Noodle, making it emblematic of a lifestyle that had been left behind and yet was secretly still craved. Doing this would bring their dirty secret out of the closet, give Pot Noodle a role, and hopefully create a hornets nest of demand.
4

06 Pot Noodle

4/2/05

3:00 pm

Page 5

POT NOODLE

The proposition Pot Noodle satisfies an unhealthy urge was the opinion we had been looking for.
The creative idea

This powerful opinion about unhealthy urges was the spur to a bold and branded creative idea to use illicit sex as a metaphor for the tempting dirtiness of Pot Noodle. TV : Desperate Dan

Nice sandwich dear? Yes its lovely

I love Kate. Its just these sandwiches. I need something filthy.

Do you do Pot Noodle?

Round the back in 2-minutes

That felt so wrong and yet it felt so right.

06 Pot Noodle

4/2/05

3:00 pm

Page 6

POT NOODLE

The advertising created a world where food was sex. In this world a sandwich would be the missionary position, a slice of pizza the wheelbarrow perhaps, and Pot Noodle would be the dirtiest, sleaziest sex imaginable. We created situations where people would get corrupted and sent off the straight and narrow such was the power of this dirty temptress of a brand. We had a bold strategy, a brave creative idea and we needed a superlative endline. Pot Noodle was the Slag of all Snacks. Expressing this idea in the strongest possible terms captured brilliantly the brands irreverence and subversiveness. It felt so wrong and yet so right.
The campaign

The campaign used TV, cinema, posters and radio to give breadth to the idea. Dramatising the different types of illicit sex that Pot Noodle can be from prostitution to pornography, from having affairs to S&M the campaign quickly built a picture of a seedy food underworld in which Pot Noodle reigned as the sleaziest snack of all.
Someone else blowing our trumpet

HHCL is showing no signs of senility in the strategic thinking dept. Sound as it ever was...What a great campaign. Its dark (really dark), its funny, its stupid, its honest, its trouble, its appropriate, its laser targeted, its classic Howell Henry. Trevor Beattie, Private view.
A badge of honour for users

This strategy came from lapsing users. We needed to check the campaign resonated for core users too. They loved the brutal honesty with which we positioned the product. The campaign makes using Pot Noodle a badge of honour in their generally unhealthy lifestyle, giving them something to revel in. And the urge bit was definitely something they could relate to. The boldness and honesty of our approach proved to be on brand and built both relevance and respect with the core audience.
Creating effective debate

After the campaign broke it caused controversy and debate. The end line was eventually banned (changed to Its dirty and you want it). Debate is a natural consequence of having and expressing a strong opinion. It is useful because people carry on the conversation youve started, free-of-charge. We became as famous for not being allowed to say Slag as for saying it. It worked to amplify the brands message. It stretched the budget and received massive coverage in non-paid for media. This all helped the campaign achieve

06 Pot Noodle

4/2/05

3:00 pm

Page 7

POT NOODLE

TV : Bombay Bad Boy

Ive brought the usual filth

But if you really want to go dog, this is new. Bombay Bad Boy.

Be warned. It opens doors to new worlds of burning pleasure

Oh it hurts

But I like it!

06 Pot Noodle

4/2/05

3:00 pm

Page 8

POT NOODLE

Radio : Hotel Room

MVO: SFX: Try not to imagine, three women and two men in a hotel room doing Pot Noodle. Mixed guzzling and slurping. This becomes more frantic. A horse neighs. You imagined it, didnt you? And I bet you even saw a horse there as well. You sick wierdo. Pot Noodle: The... Horse whinneying. ...of All Snacks.

MVO:

FVO: SFX: FVO:

amazing tracking and business results. It was voted best value campaign of 2002 by Marketing Magazine, useful in the tough economic climate. Importantly, the client had such a depth of brand understanding that it allowed them to stand by the bold approach of selling their most profitable brand by being derogatory about it.
What this sordid episode shows...

This case shows how planning saw the need to give Pot Noodle a backbone, to free it from its self-obsessed world of subversive irreverence. Bringing lapsing users back to Pot Noodle required the brand to have a strong opinion about its role in the modern food world. Having uncovered the truth that its trashy a wider perspective on the lives of lapsing users allowed us to reframe this trashiness as an illicit pleasure. It led us to the proposition that Pot Noodle satisfies an unhealthy urge the strong opinion wed been looking for.