Brand: Dairy Queen Monster Cookie Blizzard (Dairy Queen)
Execution: TV
Link: Click Here (It is the second to last spot)
Target: Grown Kids
Rating: ****
Reviewer: David

Description:
A father and son sit side by side, eating Monster Cookie Blizzards at Dairy Queen. The Dad asks, “Are you enjoying your monster cookie blizzard?” and the son grunts enthusiastically. “But Dad, where do monster cookies come from?” the boy asks. “Ah – well,” the Dad says, at a loss for words. The spot cuts to a monster cookie factor where monsters are pounding out and baking the cookies. As the monsters start to talk, we realize that they have feelings and, apparently crushes too. One monster is making a special cookie with green M&Ms for the lovely, three-eyed Gertrude. The spot ends with a close product shot of the blizzard and the voiceover, “It’s scary good. The Monster Cookie Blizzard with M&Ms. New at Dairy Queen.” The last frame is the Dairy Queen logo with the tagline “Something Different.”

What Works:
This spot certainly is something different and displays great imagination and ingenuity. Although framed in the father-son context, it works as well appealing to the fatherly crowd as directly to the kids. In fact, some of the references to adolescent romantic hijinks might be easier to decode for adults than for children.

We chose this spot to review because it features some of the best and most convincing product photography we have seen. The ice cream looks rich and inviting and a close up on the spoon shows the appealingly moist bits of cookie. Young brand managers and assistant account execs could take this spot as a training video for how to produce great food photography.

What Doesn’t:
To the extent this spot is targeted at children younger than 12, we believe (as we have detailed before in our post ‘The Boomerang Effect: Advertising to Children‘) that it is a bad idea. However we also believe that these spots are very effective at reaching adults as well, and this spot delivers particularly well against the adult male audience.

The brand position ‘scary good’ is not especially differentiated. While this spot will effectively sell the new Monster Cookie Blizzard as a destination treat for Dairy Queen, we are not sure that it will build the brand equity of the franchise.
Branding Bottom Line:
We will not be watching any more DQ spots before dinner time.