Clover launches big ad campaign push

Denise Meadon, Clover Group Marketing Manager, together with Clover's incumbent ad agency, Joe Public, were responsible for conceptualising the corporate master brand ad, which encapsulates Clover's extensive range of products to the public and underpin the company's core values.

Prior to the Clover corporate master brand commercial being launched on 25 October 2004, thorough consumer research was conducted into the concept. Says Denise, "We like to ensure that all our creative is not only acceptable and entertaining, but conveys the brand's predetermined strategic message. The reaction in pre-testing was extremely positive and encouraging. It assured us that the commercial would be a hit with consumers."

She says the launch was also strategically timed, to tie in with the official launch of the new corporate identity - including the new Clover logo and visual language - as well as the re-launch of the striking new packaging and the new products for Clover fresh milk, long life milk, cream and the various cheeses - all to be seen in store and on shelf from this month.

Explains Joe Public's Creative Director, Pepe Marais, "The foundation of the ad was laid by a famous Beatles track, All You Need Is Love and this is the first time ever, that a Beatles song has been used in a South African commercial. The message that goes out to consumers is that Clover is all you need. The ad also reinforces that Clover is not only about dairy."

He says they made use of an interesting array of people from the ordinary to local celebrities like model, Minki van der Westhuizen, former rugby player and coffee shop entrepreneur, Kobus Wiese, Bafana Bafana soccer hero, Marks Maponyane and singer Lucky Dube. The commercial is also endorsed by Proudly South African of which Clover is a member. The Clover ad is 60-seconds long, double the length of a conventional ad. "The intention was to give the brand stature, before the commercial was edited down to the conventional 30-seconds for further flightings," says Marais.

The ad was directed by top South African director, Bruce Paynter, from CAB, who says filming the commercial was challenging and complicated on both a creative and logistical level. "This ad was unusual, because we had to put pictures to the song, which was the element driving the story. Usually, you shoot a commercial and then put music to it."

Paynter says before filming, they had to decide which character was singing which part of the song, as they could not film everyone singing all of the song - it would use up too much film. It also had to be decided, which part of All You Need Is Love to use, as the original song is over three minutes long. "We had to plot the song and the characters on a storyboard and then we edited the storyboard to determine how many shots needed to be filmed."

Each person appears to be in a different location in the ad, however in reality, only a few locations were used. Paynter says it was essential that they were close to one another as the packing up of film sets and crews is highly time consuming. "We had to work around the availability of both the locations and the celebrities, as well as co-ordinate 150 people on location at one time. This required military-like precision!"

Paynter is very complimentary about the celebrities that were involved and says he would really like to work with them again. He is also full of praise for Andrew Ford, who was responsible for taking a famous piece of music and reinterpreting and rearranging it. Ford wrote all the parts for the live orchestra and the marching band, both of which appear in the commercial.

As far as the other Clover commercials are concerned, Meadon confirms that the milk and cheese and cream commercials follow on the heels of the corporate master brand commercial and will run until June 2005. "Each commercial will be a stand-alone for the product it is promoting and yet the connection to Clover and our marketing strategy will be very apparent," she concludes.