Episode 139 - Regal Springs Heaven Fish Ad Reviewed by Gymbox, Wealthify, and Automated Creative
🐟🌧 Have you ever seen “raining fish”?
The community in Yoro, Honduras, receive “Heaven Fish” once a year in this week’s ad by Ogilvy for Regal Springs. On Advertisers Watching Ads, we try to make sense of the case study chosen by Contagious and ask how much of an opportunity this phenomenon has been for the people and for the brand.
How did this ad about sustainable farming land with our guests Danielle Sims (Senior Client Lead at Automated Creative), Rory McEntee (Brand and Marketing Director at Gymbox), and David Byrne (Brand Lead at Wealthify)? What do you think of it?
Watch the full episode and let us know your thoughts!
Episode 139 - Regal Springs Heaven Fish Ad Reviewed by Gymbox, Wealthify, and Automated Creative
Transcript is automatically generated, so not perfect, but you get the idea!
Tom Ollerton 0:00
Hello and welcome to Advertisers Watching Ads. This is a weekly show where brands watch other brands' ads.
Tom Ollerton 0:30
We are, as ever, brought to you by our partners, Contagious, who have helped choose the ad this week. But before we get to the ad, let's meet this week's guests.
Danielle Sims 0:39
I'm Danielle. I'm a Senior Client Lead at Automated Creative.
Rory McEntee 0:43
I'm Rory from Gymbox. I'm the Brand and Marketing Director.
David Byrne 0:46
I'm David. Brand Lead at Wealthify.
Tom Ollerton 0:49
Right. So this week, you are going to see an ad all based on the phenomena of flying fish.
Tom Ollerton 2:42
If you're going to give this marks out of five... One, two, three... Oh, interesting. That's a... that is a high scorer! That is going to make it into the top two or three this year. So what is going on here? Can you help us understand the wider context?
David Byrne 3:21
There's a lot of stories that I've seen online about frogs and snakes. Apparently in the 16th century, there are etchings that you can find of snakes falling as rain. I think frogs, there's all sorts of other small aquatic creatures that seem to have fallen on the earth. But there's very little video evidence I've noticed. I don't know whether the other guys have found any video evidence of this sort of phenomenon online?
Danielle Sims 3:45
I didn't. Actually, no.
Rory McEntee 3:47
Nothing.
David Byrne 3:48
I mean, I guess, I don't know... I mean, for me, let's, let's get right down to it, right? I shared it with the team this morning and the team all watched it and they were, they were gushing in their praise. They said it was four or five out of five. It really captured their attention. They were intrigued by the story. The branding was nice. Yeah. All good.
Tom Ollerton 4:08
Is it, like, one day of the year these fish land or is it like several days of the year? Is there like a truck going round with some ice? Like, help me understand, is this not complete bullshit?
Danielle Sims 4:18
I think also one of the things that I'm quite conflicted about is they said that the average daily wage of someone that worked in that city is $1 per day. And then they use a big stat, which is, "We've increased it by 400%," which is actually only $5 per day when you look at it, which is still under the average wage of someone that works in Honduras. So for me, I don't know. I think there is some... I don't know if "greenwashing" is the right term in this sense, but I feel like they're probably blowing up something in terms of what they're doing, something really good. And they are, they're obviously helping. But I think they could have done more in terms of maybe putting more profits back into the community because actually that's not a ton of money to be paying.
Rory McEntee 5:05
I looked at it up from a, solely looking at the brand and the adverts. I haven't really looked granularly at that detail, but I found, I was taken on a little bit of a journey, which I quite enjoyed. You know, I was waiting for that kind of April Fool's moment saying, you know, the fish falling from the sky. I thought, "What? What's going on?" But I was kind of taken in by that lovely voice, the dulcet tones of whoever the narrator was straight away. And then when I didn't get the kind of April Fools moment, I felt myself leaning into the advert a little bit, which for me is always a good sign if I'm leaning in and wanting to find out more. I thought it was really well-crafted. I thought it was really good storytelling. I take that little point around greenwashing or is 400% on a dollar really a lot. But taking that aside, I thought the, the actual advert itself was, was really well done.
Danielle Sims 5:57
At first they kind of rejected the idea because this town is like in the middle of Honduras, so it's not actually next to the sea. And their main diet is purely... I'm going to get this wrong, but essentially it's just made up of like beans and rice, I think. And this is the one time of the year that they get to enjoy fish and they have like a whole community festival and they were like, "We don't know if we actually want to do this because it's actually a very special time for us." And they see it as almost like a religious occasion. And again, I don't know how I feel about modifying that situation as well. It is very nice storytelling, but I think we need to look at it in a critical sense as well and how, how good it actually is for the people.
Rory McEntee 6:39
I do like the fact that they use a kind of a cultural insight and then use the real people to tell that story and I think if you look at it on that side, I think it's well-executed, well-crafted. Actually, if you dig a little bit deeper. You kind of go... "Actually, are you just, are you taking in local people, taking advantage of them for profit?" And, you know, you're not giving a lot back, but you're positioning it as, you know, you're helping this community. And there is an element to that. But I'd like to think that this is helpful as opposed to unhelpful.
Tom Ollerton 7:13
Does anyone know anything about the brand? Have they done things similarly in the past?
David Byrne 7:17
Yeah, I believe that they... that it came out of an NGO. They've started fish farms in lakes around the world. They've got a number of different locations from what I read very quickly, it all seems very sustainable. It's quite often you get brands doing work around purpose, which seems tangential, or quite tenuous between what the brand does in terms of the product and what the purposeful element is. But here, just in terms of the value chain, it just seems well, these fish were falling from the sky anyway. There's some villagers that don't earn a lot. The fish might rot and stink in the village. We'll help people clean that up and then sell it on. I mean, I do have a question about how good fish that are falling out of the sky three hundreds of feet taste. But I think kind of from a branding point of view, I'd never heard of Regal Springs before. I noticed them now. I understand what Danielle is saying about, you know, does it really stand up to scrutiny around their claims of you know, the wage inflation. But I think it's pretty good.
Rory McEntee 8:18
It is quite a lot of money for poor people in this area. And actually, if you're giving, maybe from $1 to $4, it's pretty good. But being cynical, we're all brand at the end of the day. We're all trying to make money. We're trying to take advantage of the environment and social standings and everything else. So, you know what? Good for them. I think, they've, they've seen an opportunity and they've, they've taken advantage.
Tom Ollerton 8:41
So you are all creative directors on this. What would you instantly do to make this better?
Rory McEntee 8:45
I like a little bit of humour. I like something that gets my attention. What I would say in this advert, I did lean in, but it could have had a little bit more meat around the bones. It was a bit straitlaced for me, and I think it just needed something a little bit more to kind of have the end hook. It just felt a little bit flat at the end.
Danielle Sims 8:59
I had a very similar thought to Rory when I first started watching it as well. I thought it was a gag. I was waiting for the punchline at the beginning. I think it just need to be a bit more straight to the point, have your facts in place, get some more data points in there to make it really hit home that it is benefiting the community. And then I think it would be a nicer, tighter ad, but the visuals and everything is beautiful.
Tom Ollerton 9:21
And David, how do you think that marketers you know might learn from this?
David Byrne 9:24
The first thing was how does it work in your short forms or how do you re-edit, re-edit this for people with very short attention spans?
Tom Ollerton 9:31
Thumbs up or down. Would you sign off this campaign in its current form? Yes or no? One, two, three... Guys, thank you so much. We'll see you next week.
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