Yesterday we were talking about the Golden Loeki. Today we are talking about the opposite prize, the raspberry for advertising; the Lead Lion. It is awarded once a year straight after the Golden Loeki, by Dutch consumer awareness program Radar. The first prize was won by KPN’s mobile phone brand Hi. It’s about a girl that looses her ‘pokkie’ (the Surinam word for mobile phone) and goes nuts – luckily though she saved all her numbers on her Hi-account. In the commercial she screams so loud that it irritated the crap out of the consumer. According to Hi, the commercial did well among the target: 18 to 24 year olds. We believe that, but still concur with the award. An adapted Axe (Lynx) commercial, with a guy that can role his eyes to look at his own sweaty armpits, ended second. This surprised us, it is a pretty mellow ad. Maybe it was the annoying voice-over that didn’t fit with the commercial very well. The Vodafone commercial by THEY that we discussed earlier ended third. Mutated guinea pigs try to imitate normal people and talk a language that no one understands. Interesting detail; in the most recent commercial, Vodafone kept the characters, but changed the voices. So what can we learn from the Lead Lion? Don’t use loud, annoying or unintelligible voices or strange, unattractive characters in your advertising.

For several years internet provider Het Net ran an advertising campaign with a very distinctive colour (purple) and character. Fred (‘Fred from Het Net’ rhymes!) was a bit of an odd character. But together with Het Net’s proposition, transparency, he became a strong ad property and the brand built up a fair amount of clients since 2004. However, since a few years mother company KPN (formerly the only national telco provider) is consolidating its brand portfolio and decided to kill Het Net – earlier it already gulped down the brand ‘Planet’. KPN asked Lowe/Draftfcb to kill Het Net in style though. The agency built a dedicated website (don’t go there, if you don’t have broadband) where Fred gives away all the props that were used in 5 years of advertising. He even takes off his wig and moustache! On the website you can click on the different props and leave your name and contact details – aha, quid pro quo! – if you want to have one. Although it might be inspired by agency 2009 giving away its inventory at the end 2008 (when its name changed into 2009), it is a sympathetic move of KPN and might be a smart way to prevent Het Net clients from reevaluating their internet contract in the extremely competitive market of internet providers.

After having moved the last box into his new house, Martin has a quick shower and before he’s properly dressed his girlfriend already has internet up and running! He looks at the computer and says “That’s a funny picture of your mother”. But it’s not a picture… It not only made us LOL, we also like the fact that KPN actually tries to accommodate its customers by offering products that work. We know, sounds like marketing basics. But when you’ve tried to set up wifi in your house, you understand why Martin is not too worried about a working webcam. Smart product, insightful advertising; well done KPN and (its advertising agency) TBWA\Neboko.