The Brief
Get busy people who think Rustlers is made from ‘udders and eyelids’ to try the improved product by reassuring them that, ‘Rustlers is made from 100% British and Irish beef.’
The Insight
My research showed that people think that Rustlers burgers are terrible. Even the people that eat them. I identified that the brand’s place in British culture was the petrol station snack with the questionable quality credentials.
But Rustlers burgers have got a lot better over the years. They’re now able to proudly state that they’re ‘made from 100% British and Irish beef’ and research showed that this claim had a powerful effect on consumers’ quality perceptions.
I ate one, it was ok. Not life-changing, but pretty decent for a cheap microwave burger. That’s worth celebrating.
To customers, they’re the reliable choice for when you don’t even have the time or energy to think about what to eat, let alone cook it. The food equivalent of sticking on an episode of Friends rather than trawling through Netflix for something more high-brow.
The Execution
You can’t fight your place in culture, so I chose to lean into it. My strategy was to face up to the brand’s less-than-stellar reputation in a funny self-deprecating way and then flip those negative perceptions on their head with the powerful 100% claim.
The creative articulation of this thought was ‘Better Than You Think’, and the executions play off people's low expectations and subvert them in surprisingly funny and rewarding ways.
The Results
The Little Red Riding Hood ad was placed at #6 in Campaign's top 15 film ads of 2020 and contributed towards Droga5 London being named as Adweek’s 2020 International Agency of the Year.
