Smirnoff Tea Partay - Preppies on YouTube
Brand: Smirnoff Raw Tea
Execution: Viral, Web
Link: Video here, Website here
Target: Too-hipsters
Rating: ****
Reviewer: David
Description:
A viral video which has become an overnight success on YouTube, viewed over 600,000 times in the last 10 days. This is in fact viral advertising for Smirnoff Raw Tea, a new product launch. The video from Smirnoff’s agency Bartle Bogle Hegarty was directed by music video veteran Julien Christian Lutz of HSI Production. In the past few days, this video has garnered mainstream press coverage including stories on CNN. The 2:15 spot is a like a shrunken rap video featuring preppies instead of rappers. They talk about their life and lifestyle and make a soft pitch for Smirnoff Raw Tea.
What Works:
Viral video, particularly the emerging YouTube variety, is a tricky game. Promoting a brand this way can backfire easily. If you push the brand too hard, users will reject it as overtly commercial. On the other hand, hiding the brand too carefully and you will be accused of deception. Tonality is also very difficult as YouTube is a democratic system and the standard ‘advertising as a committee decision’ product rarely rises to the level of quality and quirkiness that viral video demands.
Smirnoff and BBH have hit the mark with this spot, however, by embracing Ice Tea’s geekiness instead of trying to run away from it. Improperly launched, alcoholic ice tea would probably have all the appeal of a lime wine coolers. By confronting ice tea’s prissy image head-on, Smirnoff gives this new product a fighting chance. Consumers reward brands which are comfortable enough to make fun of themselves when the result is actually funny.
What Doesn’t:
The BBH video leaves the new brand with a perilously thin brand positioning which will need to be maintained for Smirnoff Raw Tea to have a shot at succeeding. The brand positioning here is based on the ultra-preppy, perhaps more of a mythical creature than a real demographic group. However this advertising blog believes that this can be an effective positioning. The user imagery is distinct and ownable. The product underlying the brand makes sense for this user and the effect should be to give the brand expertise which will make it appeal to a much broader audience. To make this work, Smirnoff has to play the risky game of truly embracing these absurd preppies and committing to them for the long-term, not just as a one-off stunt.
Branding Bottom Line:
The Tea Partay looks suspiciously like the last wedding we attended.
August 16th, 2006 at 7:33 pm
Prep-Unit Pimps Smirnoff Raw Iced Tea…
I’m not really sure what to say about this viral video ad featuring Prep-Unit pimping Smirnoff Raw Tea, an alcoholic product, so I’ll just provide some links to other folk’s coverage beginning with where I found it. Third Way Blog:Smirnoff…
August 25th, 2006 at 4:36 am
The link to the website is wrong.
August 28th, 2006 at 9:19 am
Thanks - it should work now. For reference it is www.teapartay.com
dv
January 3rd, 2007 at 11:08 am
[…] What Works: This ad signals a new development in the most interesting marketing story of the past year - consumer-generated media. That trend has turned into a craze, causing stalwarts like Time Magazine to abandon editorial discretion and declare ‘you’ (meaning everyone) the Person of the Year. Time is reflecting the increasingly two-way nature of the interchange between brands and consumers and particularly the dramatic powershift caused by YouTube, MySpace and other social media sites online. A strong current within this trend has been the use of social media sites by brands to deliver a message to consumers - with the labor of the consumers themselves. Smirnoff did an excellent job of this with Tea Partay (our review here) which they posted on an obscure website and allowed consumers to discover and bring to YouTube. The video was viewed over two million times with no distribution cost to Smirnoff and considerable media attention. […]
January 24th, 2007 at 10:02 am
I think you need to really define the criteria of success. When this video was launched it didn’t even have a website. That in my mind is a terrible execution of any type of communication in order to A: Launch a brand B: Establish a brand as credible C: Jumpstart sales of a brand. You mention that “By confronting ice tea’s prissy image head-on, Smirnoff gives this new product a fighting chance.” The video only further cements the fact that white preppies wannabe black rappers albeit in a humorous way. That is slightly ownable and the most appealing part of the video. An advertising execution though can really only be judged on its true purpose. While it generated a bunch of Youtube hits, did it translate into actual sales and convert other drinking occasions into alcoholic tea drinkers? Probably not. User generated media is interesting but only if its user generated, this was planted. So its really not that interesting or revolutionary. This is another attempt to ride the wave of Youtube. If you are gonna make the foray then you should at least have a servicable website that can tell people what the hell to buy should they get interest in your product.
March 8th, 2007 at 11:19 am
Average consumer says: I can’t speak to the advertising lingo used above: however, I will offer an “average Joe” consumer opinion. The commercial was hilarious and very entertaining. Does it make me want to go out and buy the product, no, but when standing in front of the beer cooler at the local corner store, I can say that I will be more likely, as a non-beer drinker, to try the Smirnoff product just for the hell of it or bring it to a party just as a joke, before just grabbing a six pack of one of the 100 kinds of tasteless or getting way too expensive beer products out there.
I would say mission accomplished for Smirnoff with little investment.
November 26th, 2007 at 4:10 pm
After watching countless ad’s, viral video’s, faux ad’s and music videos I can say that not only did this campaign work for me. But it suceeded in all those area’s. It’s not just funny because its clever by being dumb, it’s hilarious and well executed. An agency can easily fumble and die when entering the perilous world of executing rap as an advertising strategy and almost all do. Unfortunately for all the haters of the advertising world. This campaign does not fail, not that it shouldn’t or even that real hip hoppers and rap stars everywhere would want it to. But because they have found that message that was there’s and allowed comic and creative genius to mash it together into an area of global psyche that it shouldn’t be allowed to go. Congratulations BBH & Congratulations to you Smirnoff. I’m now a buyer.
June 29th, 2008 at 8:49 am
Smirnoff - sounds like russian surname
February 15th, 2009 at 5:56 pm
[…] As we are a tea company I just thought I had to share the above video with you. Its a old ad for smirnoff but they created the above great sarcastic funny song for the campaign signing about Tea parties. […]