By Rick Stanton
Have you seen the latest campaign for Reese’s Peanut Butter Cups? The campaign’s big idea is based around the line, “Not Sorry. Reese’s.” Well they should be sorry: it’s stupid.
I went online to try and find an explanation, and the only thing I could find—some stats on performance of the ads—is in the link below. At best, it’s a weak inside joke based on a retort to a 2012 Mars campaign, “Sorry, I was eating a Milky Way.” Seriously?
If this is the case, Reese’s agency and its internal brain trust decided to leave the consumer out of the message. The fact that 99% of consumers don’t have the time or the interest to do what I did to get my head around this got lost on the creative department.
Where’s the end-user’s benefit? What does it say about the product that makes you want to buy some? And the copy in the TV ads is so stupid and the voiceover so annoying that it makes the message even dumber.
I feel like I’ve turned into the “get off my lawn guy” with this column, but, good grief, there’s a lot of bad advertising out there lately. I suspect some of this can be attributed to clients valuing “how fast and how cheap can I get it” more than the thinking and the creative work involved.
The fast-and-cheap phenomena always has kind of lurked about, depending on how crappy the client was/is, but it really got traction during the Great Recession. Agencies found themselves doing whatever they could to hold onto billings, including doing sub-par work—in no small part the result of laying off good talent to save money. And it was made even worse by the rise of bean counters running both the agency and client sides.
If anyone has any insights into this lame-o campaign other than what I dug up, please advise, because, I’m sorry. I don’t get it. In a recent column I referenced my “Bullshit Stamp,” and this is a perfect opportunity to apply some serious ink.
https://www.mediapost.com/publications/article/326501/notsorry-campaign-paying-off-for-reeses.html