Euro RSCG SA beefs up Pinocchio for Mr Min

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The brief from client Reckitt Benckiser was to find an eye-catching, fresh way to launch the latest fragrances for its furniture polish range. The new campaign certainly delivers on this, with Euro RSCG South Africa taking inspiration from cologne advertising, in a radical shift from the expected advertising style for the category.

And who better to model the brand's Natural Essences fragrances for wood than the world's most recognisable wooden boy, Pinocchio? Under the agency's creative eye, this eternal boy has at last grown up, transformed into the kind of hunky male model who graces fragrance commercials.

“Using a lifelike illustration, we gave Pinocchio the clichéd model look - great hair, a buff body with an open shirt, and reclining in a suggestive though not-too-sexy pose,” says James Daniels, Euro RSCG's creative director.

Mr Min Natural Essences is positioned as “the new fragrance for wood”, in a line reminiscent of a fragrance ad. Both the payoff design and the packshot have also been uniquely handled. “In a break from the category norm, where the pack and payoff are placed bottom right, we used a large centre design, making the product and payoff the focal point of the ad, as it is in cologne advertising,” says Daniels.

In addition to the print ad, Euro RSCG also created an in-store display that brought the fragrance counter to shoppers. It designed a wooden ‘perfume stand' displaying the four variants of Mr Min Natural Essences, complete with wooden test strips. Consumers could spray the product onto various types of wood to not only smell the new fragrance, but to see for themselves what a difference Mr Min makes to wood.

The campaign placed second in the magazine category of the CDF's Creative Circle Ad of the Month for April 2009.

Creative director: James Daniels
Art director: Laura May Vale
Copywriter: Justin Wanliss
Illustrator: Clive Kirk