Leaving A Bad Taste

Apparently there's a saying amongst drug dealers 'don't get high on your own supply', but one might argue that The Foundry, creative agency for Jamiesons Brewery, sampled too often of their client's product to come up with a campaign for boutique company's raspberry ale.

The tag line was cute - 'anything but sweet' - but the creative execution of 'Ho White' naked in bed with seven sated dwarfs (nah, we're not going to use the image here) has raised eyebrows as well as sharpened the pens of Walt Disney's lawyers.

Unsurprisingly the campaign has generated swathes international publicity.

It's a cheaply executed stunt to generate cheap laughs but is that kind of shock marketing sustainable? Does it assist the client company in the long term?

We would suggest not, especially since one of the key marketing planks, the campaign web site anythingbutsweet.com.au has been hastily pulled down, leaving Jamiesons with nothing more than an amateurishly slap-dash, unprepossessing web site.

While Jamiesons are revelling in the publicity, not surprisingly there is nothing on The Foundry's web site boasting of the Ho White campaign.

The explanation by the agency to B&T Weekly seems surprisingly disingenuous considering the pedigree of their other clients. Surely they must have realised that Disney fiercely protects its intellectual property:

According to the reports The Foundry has had “a little bit of contact” with Disney over its ad. Although the campaign was due to have already launched, Simon Burrett, managing director of The Foundry, told B&T Today that the campaign is on hold as there are “adjustments we have to make”.

He would not disclose whether these adjustments are due to conversations the agency has had with Disney.

Burrett said: “I can’t comment on what conversations we might have had with Disney or anyone else. We have no intention of upsetting Disney. It’s a campaign based around Snow White the fairytale.”

Note to creatives, the Snow White story might very well be in the public domain but the physical rendering of the characters is distinctly Disney.