Hellmann’s Nail the Social Basics

There’s an art to making funny 30 second ads. At times in the last decade it’s felt like a lost art. Products, pledges and purpose have taken centre stage, sometimes making for emotional and memorable ads but often losing sight of advertising’s power to entertain. Especially for big brands in FMCG categories, where what people expect from a commercial is mostly to remind them a product exists and top up its mental availability. Why not do that job in the most entertaining way possible?

Hellmann’s and Ogilvy UK remember how it’s done, and their new commercial is eye-catching, funny, a little shocking and very entertaining. The scene is simple – a boy makes a club sandwich for his dad who’s varnishing the garage door, using plenty of Hellmann’s mayo. Dad accepts it, takes a bite, and leans back in bliss – right against the sticky varnish. Things go from bad to worse when mom, in the car inside the garage, opens the automatic door sending dad up into the ceiling with it. She drives off, he comes down – fortunately unharmed, and so blissed out from the mayo that it’s like nothing happened. “Forget the rest”, says the tagline, “When you bring out the best”.

The ad is running across multiple platforms, but we tested it as a social video vertical, designed for social media platforms on smartphones. In this format the main risk for the brand is attention drop-off – people either skip or lose attention rapidly. So we’re looking not just at Brand Fluency – accurate recognition of the brand – but at Fast Fluency, or how many viewers recognise the brand in the opening few seconds.

Hellmann’s doesn’t miss a trick here. While those viewers who stick around are rewarded with a very funny commercial, the opening five seconds are simple and highly brand- and product-focused. We see a big jar of Hellmann’s mayo and then cut to someone spreading it to make the sandwich. It’s only afterwards that we cut to the story.

The result is an exceptional Fast Fluency score – 87% of viewers recognise the brand in the first two seconds. That compares to an average for US Social Video of only 42%. Hellmann’s decision to go hard on early branding gives it more than double the average recognition.

Fast Fluency matters because it drives another of our key measures – Spike Rating, which predicts the short-term, sales-boosting effectiveness of an ad. “Sticky Varnish” enjoys an Exceptional Spike Rating, massively above the social video norm. That’s partly down to the early branding and partly down to emotional intensity – the range of different emotions the ad provokes.

These scores show that Hellmann’s ad will achieve what FMCG ads have traditionally sought to achieve – drive a major sales boost in the short term. But entertaining ads aren’t just good for short-term sales; they also build the brand and market share in the long term too.

This isn’t something social video ads often deliver on. Star Rating, our Test Your Ad prediction of long-term effectiveness, averages at a low 1.7-Stars out of 5 for social video. Hellmann’s easily beat that – they score 3.3-Stars, a good rating to put them into the top 10% of all US social video commercials. Among a sample of social media users, that rises to 3.7-Stars, predicting even greater effectiveness.

Entertain for commercial gain – it’s a simple precept that social video ads don’t always follow. Hellmann’s and Ogilvy UK have got their strategy right, though, with a combination of wicked humor and strong early branding that excels in the long and short term.