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For those millions of us still working from home, here’s what you are missing: the latest instalment in Dettol’s “Keep Protecting” campaign, which looks like it was written by a government minister, not an advertising copywriter.
Is this what it’s like to work at McCann London? A place for “proper bants” with your “second family,” where people wear ties, surrounded by plastic plants, walking on weird carpets, bombarded by buzzwords? At least you can sneak off early for a cheeky afternoon in the sun.
Dettol is offering commuters an old-fashioned, sentimental take on office life, and the back-to-school rendition of the campaign is much the same, wallowing in nostalgia about “jumpers for goalposts”and “rude words on calculators.”
It’s another tired old take on the “Choose Life” manifesto from Trainspotting, also used by Waitrose in the summer. The ickiness of Dettol’s ads might make you more likely to reach for the sanitiser, though.
Thanks to Alegria Adedeji of Hue Agency (@helloalegria) for the spot.
Pack shot? Logo? Nowhere to be seen. RB, which as a client is famed for being tighter than a duck’s arse stuck in a Dyson, will be happier that it’s a two colour ad, saving even more in production costs off the budget. And it’s earned media, so that’s even better. That customers will hate it doesn’t even matter.
We haven’t even reached the bottom yet, kids. There’s a long, long way to go.