Wake-up

Anyone who's eaten a doughnut while counting calories has surely thought, "Why don't I just stick this directly on my hips/thighs/love handles/other vulnerable body part?" Leo Burnett uses that guilt-ridden notion to comedic effect in its latest round of advertising for Kellogg Co.'s Nutri-Grain bars, in an effort to position the cereal bar as a healthy breakfast on the run."We looked at what people grabbed on the run and it was pretty much bad food," says Anne Patanella, creative director and copywriter on the campaign. "We wanted to remind people that [a Nutri-Grain bar] was the smart choice."Kellogg had long positioned the bars as a convenience snack under the tag "Good food to go," and was now looking to give the brand a more ironic, hip personality in order to appeal to young, affluent, on-the-go women."One thing we were told not to do was to take it too seriously," says Jona than Hoffman, Burnett executive creative director. First to come was a tagline that summed up Nutri-Grain's new focus as a breakfast substitute: "Respect yourself in the morning." The jump from that line to the placing of Danishes on derrieres was a small one, Patanella says."It was really easy to visualize these items on people's bodies," she says. "It was shockingly obvious."Print ads, shot by the Guzmans (who also did recent work for Evian), intentionally ape fashion advertising to appeal to the target while also giving a knowing wink, says creative director/art director April Speed. "It wasn't preaching to them," she says. "Everyone is struggling to keep themselves in shape."The print ads, which will appear in magazines, on trains and buses and outside pastry shops, gave rise to a 30-second TV commercial.On a subway train, commuters are eating various pastries. As a woman exits the car with two cinnamon buns attached to her rear, a voiceover says: "If this is what you sometimes eat for breakfast, re member: You are what you eat." The spot closes on a man with a donut around his waist who is struggling to get through a turnstile.The creative team aimed to transfer the simplicity of the print ads to the new context. "We didn't want to give too much away," Pata nella says. "We wanted to make it feel more down-to-earth."Because the spot has no dialogue, director Rafael Fernandez (who, while vying for the job, sent a basket of pastries with his ideas for body parts) looked to cast "interesting faces." The spot had to remain alluring until the buns joke is revealed. To achieve just the right buns effect, a crew member took a plaster cast of the woman's rear end and shaped the prosthetic cinnamon buns to fit, Patanella says. The spot was shot over two nights in Prague, and the agency commandeered a subway train to run between stops overnight to keep the realism afloat.Ultimately, Hoffman believes such touches contribute to the spot's payoff. "A huge amount of work was put into crafting the details," he says. "My whole existence is that. I believe consumers notice those things, even if they can't articulate them."

Brand Marketing

Wake-up

Aaron Baar

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Aaron Baar