Irn-Bru’s “Mannschaft”

Welcome to a very special edition of the AdMiration newsletter! This week we have guest author Richard Shotton , behavioral scientist and author of The Illusion of Choice and The Choice Factory.?

This week’s ad: “Mannschaft”???

Created just ahead of the Scotland/Germany Euros 2024 match, the ad opens with a German football fan approaching a Scottish fan, wearing an orange kilt, in the bathroom. “Good luck with your Mannschaft, Ja?” We then learn that mannschaft, rather than being the part of anatomy that it sounds like, is German for “football team.”?

The Scot swaggers back into the bar, bagpipes playing in the background, explaining exactly how great the Scottish Mannschaft really is. The rest of the ad is an extended double entendre — he could be talking about either a strong and mighty football team, or something manly of a different kind.?

He ends by shouting “We caaaaan!” and flipping up his kilt to flash his backside, clothed in tight orange boxers and emblazoned with “We Can" and the Irn-Bru logo.

3 facts

• The ad achieves a high score on distinctiveness — both for ad distinctiveness (4.1 versus? the 3.6 norm) and brand distinctiveness (3.8 versus the 3.5 norm).

• The audience finds it highly amusing — when asked to select a single emoji in response to the overall ad, 38% went for the laughter emoji, much higher than the UK average of 7%.?
• It ends on a high — in the last 4 seconds, 20% of the audience record laughter as their overriding response compared to around 6% across the ad on average.

2 learnings

• Using humor boosts distinctiveness. Ads that make viewers laugh are a rarity these days, but humor helps an ad to stand out and leave a lasting impression.
• The way you end your ad is crucial, according to the peak-end rule, as this is the most memorable part — so ending with a bit of wit in the last few seconds will land well with an audience.

1 reflection

When asked to respond with a single emoji,? just 7% of UK ads are stamped with a laughing face. So, making people laugh is not a widely used tactic. But this is a mistake.?

According to the halo effect, discussed in The Illusion of Choice, our responses spill over from one characteristic to a brand as a whole.?When making an evaluation, we don't reflect on all features individually — that would be far too time consuming. Instead, we tend to assume that if a person or brand outperforms on one metric, they'll do so on others. So, if you do well on humor,?your audience will rate you highly on other, unrelated metrics.

Why pick humor to focus on? Well, being funny is something you can tangibly demonstrate in an ad. Other metrics you might want to convey, like trust or likeability, are more abstract and can only be claimed. Since demonstrations are more persuasive than claims, if you make a funny ad you'll be laughing all the way to the bank.

Check out Zappi’s blog for a more detailed look at this ad’s performance.?

Thanks for joining me this week,

Richard Shotton