Branding, Culture, Politics, and Everything in Between

Thought I’d feature something funnier this time. I’m a bit late to the party as this campaign is already a bit old, I need to decrease my draft-to-published number. Via American Copywriter:

That is Denny’s new ad promoting their All Nighter offering or campaign. And yes, as American Copywriter noted in his blog, the unicorn is indeed high.

Of course, the unicorn plays the role of the stoner to a T. Overall the campaign plays well with modern nuances of the fast food diner. The boys (uh, mythical creatures) have been to a rock concert, and have come to gorge some fast food as their buzz is coming down a bit. The works in the sense that Denny’s isn’t making an ass of itself by trying to be cool and “speaking like the young people do”.

But why the unicorn, the T-Rex and the leprechaun? The main reason would probably be that the campaign is going for a quirky, “WTF?” effect. I guess it does make it potentially more viral. But what I have been thinking about is that with make-belief characters like that, you can say pretty much anything. It’s the old ventriloquist effect: the puppet can say anything, but the person is playing the straight man role. A regular stoner being high as a kite in a Denny’s probably been too much for the bosses at Denny’s. A stoner unicorn? Hilarious!

The campaign deserves some major points though for having profile pages for all the characters on Facebook. The content there is top-notch contemporary and “on character” all the time.