Welcome to the second instalment of the I Doff my Cap series in which I tip my hat to brand marketing campaigns that have impacted me on both a professional and personal level.
In this piece, I doff my cap to the renowned online food delivery service, Just Eat, and the most recent chapter of its campaign, featuring Snoop Dogg.
There’s no doubt that we’re all familiar with the famous jingle “Did Somebody Say Just Eat?” during the ad breaks of our favourite prime time television shows or whilst we’re listening to the radio during our daily commute. But the latest instalment of this campaign is rather different to what we’re used to seeing and hearing.
Well-known for delivering customers freshly cooked meals from their favourite restaurants direct to their door, Just Eat found a gap in the global market and soon became one of the leaders of it.
And, with a jingle that cleverly divided opinions and created conversations, Just Eat has always been at the top of its game when it comes to marketing the brand, which is one of the reasons I doff my cap.
Recognising the need to keep it fresh
But now, after the majority of the population has spent many months indoors with quite possibly one too many takeaways, Just Eat clearly felt the need to up their game. It recognised that, while the jingle and its messaging needed to remain consistent with what had been done before, updating them was required to take things up a gear.
After a turbulent time for everybody, Just Eat is keen to encourage consumers to use its service for any occasion or celebration, and not just for a traditional weekend treat.
What better (or more peculiar?) way to up its game than with a global rap icon?
Just Eat teamed up with the notorious (no, not the late Biggie Smalls) Snoop Dogg to create a new version of its famous jingle and to open the next chapter of its “Did Somebody Say Just Eat?” campaign.
As a business owner myself, I understand the difficulty that comes with recognising the need to keep campaigns fresh and interesting whilst keeping a consistent brand message, which is yet another reason I doff my cap to this campaign.
The power of talent
Just Eat has realised the power of working with talent and has used it as a new means of marketing for their latest campaign. Talent can come in many forms – singers, dancers, actors, reality TV stars and influencers – and they are a truly powerful marketing tool.
I’m a firm believer that celebrities are brands in their own right. And they bring with them their own reputation, values and beliefs. Therefore, when a brand decides to work with them, they have to accept that the celebrity and their actions are now a reflection of the brand, too.
Investing huge amounts of money and paying for talent association could be seen as a risk, but often one worth taking, if well considered. In this case, the amount of publicity the campaign has generated in likes, forwarded posts on social media and global press interest has outweighed the original costs.
The organic earned coverage is viewed much more favourably by consumers than paid for advertising, too. Therefore, the impact gained practically ‘for free’, has surpassed what they would have received if they had used paid tactics.
As I will continue to mention throughout this ongoing series, I have a great deal of respect for brands that decide to take risks and this campaign, in particular, has done just that perfectly.
The campaign
If you look at it on paper and even when you say it out loud, it sounds a bit ridiculous and probably shouldn’t work. But somehow it does, and incredibly well at that.
Working with Snoop Dogg has allowed Just Eat to be placed in front of its target audience of mid-twenties to mid-forties through a fun advert which will be shown on TV, out-of-home, social media and radio.
The campaign isn’t too serious and is trendy, cool and very different from the brand’s traditional adverts and marketing campaigns, as well as everyone else’s. It stands out from the crowd, which is vital, especially in the digital world, which is why it has attracted so much coverage from both the press and social media. With over 12 million views on YouTube alone, it proves just how much of a success the campaign has been.
Just Eat does it ‘doggystyle’
Over the years, Snoop Dogg has had a hugely successful career. And, throughout that time, he has reinvented himself a number of times, taking on different tribes and personas. From gangster, musician, entrepreneur and actor, Snoop Dogg has done it all and to this day, he is still incredibly relevant as a public figure without having lost any of his former personalities and characters.
This time, Snoop Dogg is global phenomenon and hip-hop rapper. Turning the famous Just Eat jingle into a rap, with lyrics such as “private jet in the night sky, my man hand glide by with my fried rice”, this creates that emotional connection with the consumer that it didn’t have before, in the form of laughter.
Laughter is an emotion. And one that is too often forgotten, especially in marketing. Most brands focus on relevance or tugging on heart strings but, in times like this, consumers need to feel joy and fun from a campaign. And I believe that Just Eat has managed to achieve just that, through the use of Snoop’s hilarious and outrageous lyrics and creating such a memorable ad.
Although the jingle is relatively similar to the original, it has been completely ‘snoopified’, making the band’s services more personal and relatable to him and his lavish L.A lifestyle.
The campaign is quite literally crazy and chaotic, but I absolutely love it.
I doff my cap to just how successful Just Eat has been in 2020, and beyond. This success must be attributed, in part, to this brilliantly put together campaign, combined with the Covid-19 crisis, which drove an interest in and demand for such a service. And to prove this, the last few months alone has seen its share price soar from around 6000 at the end of March to a mid-August high of over 9100.
So, to Just Eat, for trying something new and it completely paying off, I doff my cap.
#IDoffMyCap…