Recycled advertising: good for the creative planet?

Recently, I saw a Pot Noodle commercial which seemed familiar. It was the same commercial I’d seen the day before but, instead of a slurping sound coming from the woman eating her noodles, it had the sound of a goal being scored. 

It got me thinking; is that a thing? Can you recycle advertising? 

I saw it again later that evening, and the goal-scoring sound was replaced with a giggling baby. And then, the next day, with a cat purring. 

The original slurp had left viewers ‘disgusted’. So, the agency responsible for the work, adam&eveDDB, replaced said slurps with more universally acceptable sounds. As a result, the ad was ‘recycled’ with different sounds. 

It got me thinking; is that a thing? Can you recycle advertising? 

Above: Pot Noodle's recent campaign replaced the 'slurping' sound with a series of other sound effects, allowing for multiple uses of the same spot. 

We recycle plastic bottles, clothes and a million other things; why not advertising? 

The BBC drama Vigil was another case in point. The second series used the original trail that sank into the dark depths of submarine warfare, but reversed the action, flying up out of the water into the sky, to reflect the theme of drones in the new series. 

We recycle plastic bottles, clothes and a million other things; why not advertising? 

Full transparency here, I was involved in the original Vigil trail, and so my interest was piqued seeing this re-working of the campaign which, like Pot Noodle, re-cycled the original. A minor audio tweak here, a reversing of footage there, and you’ve got a new (old) campaign. 

Above: The BBC repurposed the idea for the trail for the first series of Vigil to create the trail for series two.

Is this a good thing? Is falling back on previous ideas rather than looking for new solutions right? Well, yes. At least with a few caveats. (Or, rather, one big one). It needs to have been a good idea in the first place to merit a second outing. A good ad then is still a good ad now. Conversely a shit ad then will be just as stinky now.

One of the more creative approaches to this trend came from AMV BBDO in 2004, when launching Extra Cold Guinness. Not shy to plunder their back catalogue, they re-cycled ten seconds of Surfer with a few well-placed sounds of surfers feeling the cold as their delicate toes touch the freezing water. Yes folks, the greatest commercial of all time has been re-hashed. There were in fact three re-worked Guinness spots in total - Surfer, Snails and Fish - all executed with charm and tact. 

Sacrilege, or a smart response to the brief? A bit of both. 

Above: Even the most celebrated campaigns can be reused if done well.

Another classy use of a previous campaign came from Apple a couple of years ago. Dancers with AirPods in their ears, weaving mesmeric patterns across colourful billboards up and down the country. Simple. Beautiful. Graphic. And a virtual carbon copy of their work for iPod back in 2004. Same idea. Same brilliant graphics. Same infectious dance moves. And very much worth a repeat viewing. 

Should we be expecting other brands re-working ideas from decades ago?

So, can anyone do it? Should we be expecting other brands re-working ideas from decades ago? Probably not. Few campaigns stand the test of time as well as Apple and Guinness. If they had, we’d be seeing more, right? 

Above: Nearly two decades separate Apple's iPod and Air Pod poster campaigns.

When we’re not recycling ads, we’re recycling ads from tv shows about ads. Pass the Heinz is a brilliant example from David Miami, from 2017. Or maybe we should say from 1968, as the campaign was a direct lift from an episode of Mad Men. 

The fictional client’s loss was real life’s gain.

Don Draper pitched the Pass the Heinz idea in his usual erudite, charming fashion, but sadly to no avail. The fictional client’s loss was real life’s gain, with the campaign winning gazillions of awards, a tonne of PR, and shifting a fair few bottles of the red stuff. Advertising imitating art about advertising and then recycling it. How meta is that? 

Above: From fiction to fact; the original idea for Heinz's Pass the Heinz campaign was from Mad Men.

KFC got in on the act during the pandemic, more out of necessity than choice. When your brand is ‘Finger lickin’ good’ and Covid strikes - resulting in governments telling the world not to put fingers near mouths, let alone lick them - you’re in trouble. 

Unless you’re KFC. No one deals with a FCK-ing crisis like The Colonel. They merely recycled their end line with a subtle pixelation of the words ‘finger lickin’, so the slogan read ‘It’s ___ good’. Nice. 

Above: KFC's re-cycled end line was as much out of necessity as it was choice. 

It’s one thing to recycle your own work, but what happens when others do it for you? Back in 1995, alcohol free beer Kaliber did just that with Wonderbra’s Hello Boys billboard, giving it their own spin with the line ‘Hello Girls’ featuring a cheeky looking Billy Connelly holding up two bottles of the beverage. 

Recycling advertising can work, so long as your source material is good enough.

Clever media buying meant the original and the recycled homage appeared next to each on twin sites.