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Gum comes unstuck

Posted in General, Advertising, Branwell Johnson May 9th, 2007 by Branwell Johnson

So, Saatchi & Saatchi has been caught out using stealth marketing in the form of a single by Shocka featuring Honeyshot. The single “Style, Attract, Play” has been banned from Radio One and attracted flak from elsewhere for essentially being an ad for P&G’s Shockwaves.

In this case it seems a clever idea has backfired. Saatchi’s youth engagement and branded content arm Gum formed Honeyshot with the intention of using the band as brand ambassadors.

No harm in that – music fans might say that’s a corrupting influence on the “pure” spirit of pop – but brands and bands have been linked before. Remember Fast Food Rockers (and the actions?) or the charity single Don’t Give Up by Louise in 2003, which intentionally featured the Asda jingle tune and was written by the same songwriter.

What was Gum’s crime? Lack of transparency. It was hoping to sneak the Shockwaves message (a brand strapline is Style. Attract.Play) in to the minds of today’s teenagers within the Trojan horse of a pop song. If Saatchi’s and P&G had been open in the beginning and not stonewalled enquiries then maybe there would not be a backlash now. People accept, if not always like, brands and music intertwining – Jack White wrote a Coca-Cola song last year and at a recent brands and bands summit, which I attended, Fatboy Slim’s manager said that he could imagine a brand paying the marketing and distribution costs of an act’s CD – that’s to say, for instance, a Fatboy album coming out on the Guinness label.

But no-one likes to be hoodwinked and there’s enough anxiety about subliminal messages in marketing to realise the Honeyshot single might cause a stink. Good idea Gum but let down by obsessive secrecy.