Watch above or read below.

Matthew Burns:
So, the Super Bowl just happened not too long ago, and every year when the Super Bowl comes out, everybody starts critiquing all the Super Bowl ads. And this year, I know there are a lot of people saying there’s some disappointment. There’s been some decent ads. I don’t think they’re great for campaigns and all that kind of stuff, but there were some fun ads.

And there’s one in particular that I liked that I didn’t even tell Steve until right before we got on. And I said, “Am I crazy because I like this ad?” And so it’s the William Shatner Raisin Bran ad. And listen, they’ve been selling Good for Your Guts forever. It’s not like this is a new thing for them. They are the “We are going to save your bowel company.” We know that.

But what they’ve never done is really leaned into what that means. And then they renamed Will Shatner into Will Shat, and then they did this.

 

William Shatner: Will Shat here bring fiber to the masses with Kellogg’s Raisin Bran. Duty calls.
Woman: Will Shat?
William Shatner: Every darn day.
Man: Whoa.
William Shatner: Bye. Will Shat in the house.
Teen: Wait, Will Shat where?
William Shatner: Nevermind. It’s fiber time. Is that Dog a Shih Tzu? Perfect.
Man: Will Shat on the car!
William Shatner: You’re too old for this shat.
Voiceover: Kellogg’s Raisin Bran. High fiber, happy gut.

Matthew Burns:
What an exit from the car. I’m too old for this shat, which again is just a line for movies. Man, I don’t know. Maybe I’m just juvenile, and it’s poop jokes, and I think it’s funny, but let me know your thoughts, Steve?

Stephen Semple:
Oh, look, there are a whole bunch of reasons why I really like it, because if you weren’t paying attention, you wouldn’t get it right away. Right. Like the Will Shat thing, you wouldn’t get right away. And it’s very clever. It’s very fun.

Also, it’s William Shatner. And Shatner, anybody who wants to see a great William Shatner thing, watch the I Am Canadian Molson ad on YouTube and then go to the Shatner version of it. And you realize how much of a sense of humor this guy has. He has an amazing sense of humor. And look, Denny Crane. So it fits him. It’s subtle. It’s not in your face. And you could totally do a campaign on it.

Matthew Burns:
I agree. I think it would be a big mistake if they didn’t do a campaign on it. The thing that got me was-

Stephen Semple:
Well, William Shat on my front lawn.

Matthew Burns:
William Shat.

Stephen Semple:
Yeah.

Matthew Burns:
Well, he beams in. So they played on Star Trek without truly playing on Star Trek. He beams into the house, and he goes, “Will Shat in the house,” and then Will Shat on the car. And the fact that they’re turning his name into a sentence is brilliant. Going down that road, is that a Shih Tzu? And the Shih Tzu’s name collar said Will Shih Tzu.

Stephen Semple:
Oh, I didn’t even notice that.

Matthew Burns:
Yeah. It was really well done. They were coy in the use, and then they were overhanded with the use. And I think because comedy can do both those really well, it was awesome the way it was used. Let’s be frank, Raisin Bran has never been that bold. They’ve never been that bold.

Stephen Semple:
If you’re going to say anything, Raisin Bran is boring.

Matthew Burns:
Right.

Stephen Semple:
Their whole thing for the longest time was two scoops of raisins in every Raisin Bran. Look, we got more raisins. Right. Yeah. Okay. Whoopi.

Matthew Burns:
It’s funny, though, because now that you sing that, they’ve got echoic memory. It’s not that you don’t know who they are, but they’ve done some good things in the past. But this is one of those ones where you know actors who get typecast because they play the same role all the time, and all of a sudden they get to do something completely left field, so that they can get … That’s what Raisin Bran did because it’s guaranteed people are not buying Raisin Bran as often as they used to. I’m just saying. Sorry.

Stephen Semple:
Yeah. Well, and so strategically, and I didn’t even think about this, strategically, this is really strong for a couple of reasons. Their sales are probably off. And I’m going to say there’s this whole thing in terms of probably the aging demographics. So here’s the thing that’s fun with that. We all, because we’re old, remember when we were young, the Raisin Bran ad. So Raisin Bran is not an unknown brand to us. We probably never buy it. And we never think of it that way. And now they’ve done this really interesting pivot where it’s now an adult food group to adults who used to remember it and probably enjoyed it as a kid for different reasons.

Matthew Burns:
Dude, absolutely. There’s nostalgia built into it.

Stephen Semple:
Strategically, really interesting, really strong move.

Matthew Burns:
I want to pay attention now, a little bit, to how they do. Again, they’re publicly traded, so we can find out more data on them.

Stephen Semple:
If this campaign does not persist, this’ll be the reason why. When you do things like this, it’s not unusual that there can be a dip because you’ll lose… Let’s say right now they have a lot of young people consuming the brand. They will lose them before they pick the others up. And so sometimes if this becomes a campaign, they’ve got to stick with it. They got to ride through to the other side. And sometimes there’s not the persistence to ride through to the other side.

Matthew Burns:
Actually, and I love the way you thought through that, because absolutely, the other thing that would suck for them is if they only did the one ad. It actually hurt them on both ends because they wouldn’t have new clients, but they could be pissing off somebody else. Do you know what I mean? And so it could be a much bigger dip because then they lose both sides of the equation.

Stephen Semple:
When you’re doing that type of pivot, you’ve got to persist.

Matthew Burns:
That’s right. You’ve got to own it. I’m an adult child. And so the poop jokes to me… I mean, listen, I have a client in Ottawa, Ontario, who is a plumber, and we just do poop jokes in space called… They’re called Out Of This World Plumbing. You’ve seen them before. So I’m just a big child, but I thought there was something interesting that they did here, and the strategic stuff I didn’t even go through. This was the emotional feel. Again, you’re the brains. I’m the heart. Let’s call that for what it is. Anything else? What can somebody steal from this and use?

Stephen Semple:
Here’s where these things can fall apart. If you’re going to do something crazy, you’ve got to go crazy. The mistake that you can make is only go partway.

Matthew Burns:
Oh, this is great. Yeah.

Stephen Semple:
Right? If you’re going to do something like this, the mistake happens by going only a little bit.

Matthew Burns:
Correct.

Stephen Semple:
You do have to run the risk of, “I might piss people off. I might alienate this. ” It’s like when you’re doing a joke, or you’re doing something unusual, or you’re doing something outrageous, or you’re doing something bold, you actually have to go whole hog into it.

Matthew Burns:
Absolutely.

Stephen Semple:
The risk actually lies in not going too far. The risk actually lies in not going far enough.

Matthew Burns:
Yes, because it could just be offensive versus comedic. It could be offensive or absurd. And absurd, people can discount as, okay, that’s absurd. Okay, I get the joke now. Yeah, no, I agree with you wholeheartedly on that. Safe is risky, that’s why I wear the shirt.

Stephen Semple:
But we’ve seen that. We’ve seen that before.

Matthew Burns:
We have seen it.

Stephen Semple:
So when you’re doing it, lean into it. There’s also a certain halo effect and equity that they got. Now, I know it’s Will Shat, and it’s the Shat thing that makes it work, but it’s also the fact that it’s Shatner that makes it work because we all know he’s got a sense. Anybody who’s a fan of his knows he’s got a sense of humor.

Matthew Burns:
Well, and anybody who’s a fan of his is of an age. And so, as you said, they’re leaning into this very specific demographic here.

Stephen Semple:
We’re leaning into a whole bunch of things here.

Matthew Burns:
So no, I agree. Okay. Well, listen, thank you for humoring my sense of humor.

Stephen Semple:
Oh, I think it’s great. And I hope they run with it as a campaign. There are lots they could do with this.

Matthew Burns:
We’ll keep our eye on it. If they run it as a campaign, maybe we’ll come back, and we’ll look at some of those pivot points or what they’ve done and see what the growth is. Okay. Well, thank you, guys. Listen, if you want more poop jokes, just let us know in the comments, and I’ll try. We will see you guys next time on Sticky Sales Stories.

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