Canadian Marketing Blog

Ring a Bell?

Well, it's out of the bag so to speak. By now, most people know that the blue wrapping paper with silver ribbon and bow teaser campaign is for Bell. If you go to http://www.bell.ca you can click on a wrapped box being held by one of those beavers and view a Bell ExpressVu HD demo. The unwrapping isn't animated in Flash. And you have to keep rolling over the bow to find the small section of it that allows you to click through. Overall, I'm afraid I'm underwhelmed. The wrapping paper and bow outdoor tease campaign is still up. And frankly, I'm not sure how anyone knew that it was for Bell. Purely word of mouth I guess. So the question is this: Cool teaser campaign. Created a lot of buzz -- at least among Marketers. But was it good creative? Was the pay-off well-executed? Did it sell? I guess only someone from Bell can answer the last question. What did you think?

Somebody likes those Beavers. In my last post, I spoke about the mystery teaser campaign and how much I was looking forward to the CMA Awards and seeing what would win. Little did I know I was teasing for Bell on both counts. The teaser campaign was for Bell and the Best of the Best Award was won by Bell for the Olympic Beaver campaign. Like it or not, I guess they're doing something right.

Yes, I too am completely underwhelmed by the Bell campaign. The wrapped gifts all over the city were great, but now that they're unwrapped and we're seeing a mish mash of Bell ads - most without any reference to the original wrapping - my only reaction is, hmh.
Who likes the beavers? My 3 year old daughter practically falls over herself laughing whenever she see them. But is she making the purchase decisions on phone, intermet & cable providers in our household? not yet!

I haven't seen the wrapped gifts (guess that's what happens to those of us who live in the 905 area), but I must say that Frank and Gordon are the most amusing and entertaining duo that I've seen in any mass program -- let's not forget that the idea was to build brand. And in that regard, Bell has done a great job.

The beavers are proof positive that if you spend enough dough (and Bell has lots of it), you can create a link between a brand and any icon, regardless of how banal it might be. But it's hard to argue that the beavers are creating a brand for Bell, say in the same way the Gecko does for Geico, or the duck does for Afflac. And while I'm on the topic of animal mascots, hasn't Telus pretty much used up the entire animal kingdom by now.

Ed, I would agree with you that the idea should have been to build a brand. Unfortunately what we have here is only a campaign with a couple of beavers. not a sustainable brand. A brand is something enduring like the tone and manner established by Apple and sustained through every iteration of creative regardless of the product being sold.

these two guys are the best ads in years best part of the olympics!

I will have to say I can't see where the whole campaign is going. Ed and Brian are right. There is nothing in the ads that builds up the brand and makes it memorable. Haven't I seen that dumb beaver in ads for at least 2 or 3 commercials lately. To me the whole thing looks like an animator has done a great job animating the beavers in the Narnia movie and is now trying to get every agency in the country to put the beavers in commercials.

As for the teaser part of the whole deal. If it doesn't relate to the underlying message, then what is it saying? We have a gift for you. Well I will be waiting to see exactly what that gift is!

Whether we like them or not, the beavers are something that we associate with Bell. I'm not sure at what point they'd consider retiring them and trying something now.
If MTS' campaign in Manitoba is any indication (re Bison ads), they could get some mileage out of them yet!