Manners and etiquette are abandoned for Utterly Butterly
| by: | Aug 27, 2003 |
People will go to great lengths when they really want something. A campaign for dairy spread Utterly Butterly - the first from new agency Grey London - hones in on which behavioral niceties normally civil people throw out the window when it comes to their butter spread.
For instance, a painfully courteous pair of office workers eschew good manners when it comes to Utterly; a determined woman scrapes the last bits of the spread with a cocktail stick; another breaks bread and Butterly before making it to the checkout counter; and in a viral spot, an elderly couple entertains the notion of using the spread in bed in what director Nicholas Barker calls "the first sideways reference to anal sex in a British television commercial".
The idea behind the campaign was to "communicate irresistibility and desire for the product" says Barker, who directs through Rogue in the UK. To do this, each spot ends with a tag incorporating Utterly - Utterly Impolite for "Canteen", Utterly Impatient in "Supermarket".
Barker says his favorite spot in the campaign is "Canteen" as it allowed him to work with the idea through improvisation. "That particular script was just an idea and we played with the idea in the casting studio, which is the way I prefer to work. We knew where we were going to end up, which was the moment the man hands over the Utterly Butterly, but we could do anything to get there," Barker says. "It was simply a matter of establishing the characters and exploring the exquisite awful awkwardness of English manners."
The campaign broke on British television in the third week of August, with the exception of "Unrepeatable", which is destined for a viral launch. The racy spot, which Barker says makes more than passing reference to a scene in Last Tango in Paris, was always intended to go online. "It was doubtful that it would pass British advertising standards," says Barker. "And it didn't."
