A Kids' Choir Viciously Taunts Work-Obsessed Parents in Dairy Queen’s Sweet Summer Ads

A children’s choir dishes out the guilt in Barkley’s snackable #SummerSkipDay ads for Dairy Queen. With their red robes waving in the breeze, the youngsters congregate on a baseball diamond and at a lakeside beach to belt out some familiar tunes, with tweaked lyrics that encourage their parents to skip a day a of work and take them out for frozen treats. The ads also promote a new DQ app offering fans a free DQ Blizzard with their first download. In the clip below, an updated “Ode to Joy,” immortalized in Beethoven’s Ninth Symphony, ditches the original's elevated language about starry canopies and gods in favor of, “Guilt trip, guilt trip, guilt trip, guilt trip, guilt trip—this is our guilt trip. We could spend some time together, but you did not take off work.” [kickout id="1"] In your face, Friedrich Schiller. (He's the German poet who composed the classic "Ode" in 1785—d'uh.) Barkley drew inspiration for the campaign from a 2017 study by Project: Time Off that found 24 percent of Americans don’t skip a single day of work all year long. “So, on the first official day of summer (today, June 21), Dairy Queen, the quintessential brand of summer, wanted to inspire parents to finally take off work and spend it with their kids,” Katy Hornaday, executive creative director at the agency, tells Adweek. “The challenge was how to get a nation of parents to take a day off? The answer: guilt," she says. "Sweet, melodic, in-your-face guilt. We got an adorable children’s choir to sing classic songs with a twist." The clips below put fresh DQ twists on “Frère Jacques” and “I’ve Been Working on the Railroad,” respectively: [kickout id="2"] [kickout id="3"] In just 24 hours, that last clip garnered more than 10,000 views, 700 likes and 600 shares—even before paid-media support across Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter kicked in. That’s a pretty chill performance. Though maybe if those kids weren’t singing their heads off for ice cream every blessed minute, their parents would spend more time at home. The Kansas City Children’s Choir appears in the ads and on the soundtrack. “All the kids participated in singing, but it was nearly 95 degrees, with a 15-mph wind when we filmed on location,” says agency cd Matt Pruett. “The sound wasn’t ideal, so we captured them in a studio the next day.” “We shot these ads in beautiful, but desolate summertime locations that would ordinarily be filled with families – if mom and dad weren’t working all the time.” “Wrangling 15 kids under the age of 9 is much easier with the promise of Blizzards,” he recalls. Even so, “As you can see in the videos, their attention spans were shorter than our takes.” As it turned out, the occasional fidgeting played well in context, enhancing the jokey atmosphere. “We chose to embrace their short attention spans in the content,” Pruett says. CREDITS Client - Dairy Queen EVP U.S. Marketing - Maria Hokanson Integrated Marketing Manager - Lisa Jesser Public Relations Manager - Bri Bauer Content & Social Media Marketing Manager - Jenell Lammers Agency - Barkley Executive Creative Director - Katy Hornaday Group Creative Director - Berk Wasserman Creative Director - Matt Pruett Associate Creative Director - Joe DeSalvo Associate Creative Director - Kyle Anthony Executive Producer - Melany Esfeld Producer - Shawn Wallace Art Director - Chris Larberg Copywriter - Justin Smith Project Manager - James Prideaux SVP Brand Leadership - Stephanie Parker VP Brand Lead- Andy Pitts Brand Supervisor - Julia Unverfehrt Group Strategy Director - Chris Cardetti Strategist - Scott Roberts Engagement Director - Chris Mason Production Company - RW2 Director - Kevin Schowengerdt Production Company Producer - Marie Dougherty Director of Photography - Jason Cantu Editorial / Post Production Company - Barkley Films Producer - Lauren Alexander Editor - Josh Dubois Audio Mix - Patrick Meagher Colorist - Tyler Roth Color Producer - Lauren Roth

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A Kids' Choir Viciously Taunts Work-Obsessed Parents in Dairy Queen’s Sweet Summer Ads

Classic tunes get a snarky twist

David Gianatasio

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David Gianatasio