Juicy Results for Capri Sun’s Tech Pastiche

Capri Sun’s latest ad has one of the more original concepts we’ve seen recently. Instead of a drink, the brand is positioning itself as a noise-cancellation device to deal with excitable, noisy kids and give parents a minute or so’s break. Because they love it so much, they’ll stop the chaos while they drink from the brand’s unique pouches.

It’s a cute functional benefit for a drink that’s most often bought by parents for kids’ lunchboxes and snack times. But what makes the ad stand out is the execution. Capri Sun and agency Mischief haven’t made a typical soft drink or juice ad. They’ve made a typical tech product demonstration ad instead.

The ad uses fly-on-the-wall style camerawork to recreate the vibe of a tech product demonstration, with the Capri Sun juice pouches packaged in the sleek, elegant boxes you might see a new tablet or phone use. An enthusiastic retailer explains the benefits of the “wireless noise-cancelling device” to slightly baffled parents, before a demonstration of Capri Sun’s power to hush even the noisiest kid. The whole thing is entertaining because of the obvious incongruity of the everyday drink in the elaborate package, but also because everyone involved is totally deadpan about it.

In fact, the joke extends beyond the screen. Mischief have also created a real-life activation producing actual boxed “noise cancelling” Capri Sun, containing 2 packs of juice and a Taskrabbit gift card to take more strain off parents. The boxes are strictly limited giveaways for the brand, designed to get the campaign a little more attention.

Even without that, Capri Sun and Mischief have done a great job here. The ad gets a strong 4.1-Stars on Test Your Ad, and also performs strongly on Brand Fluency – a good result given how far from the usual category codes this strays. Best of all, the ad is an exceptional performer on short-term Spike Rating: not only is it primed to grow the brand if invested in properly, it will give a nice sales boost in the near-term too. Capri Sun have thought differently about their product and category – and then turned that thinking into an entertaining, unusual piece of work.