Euro RSCG SA sucks it up for Dinu

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The campaign features three ads which portray different takes on one, simple message: that the new super-absorbent Dinu kitchen towels can soak up whatever moisture comes their way.

The visually-arresting ads feature a single sheet of Dinu kitchen towel on a white dinner plate. Putting the towel's absorptive power to the test in the three ads are a bunch of grapes, now shrivelled to raisins, a T-bone steak turned to biltong on the bone, and a once-blooming rose now dried. An embossed Dinu logo and the economically-worded “Super absorbent kitchen towels” payoff complete the message.

While simple in appearance however, each image took a great deal of preparation. “Each prop had to be painstakingly dried before we could photograph it,” explains creative director, James Daniels. If the team wasn't drying out grape stems and replacing the grapes with raisins, it was testing which method worked best for drying out a rose - in the oven, or hanging for two weeks?

And the experimentation did not end with the drying. “We had to create the effect that it was the Dinu kitchen towel that had drained out all the moisture,” says Daniels. “Recreating the moisture stains proved to be the biggest challenge. We became fluid mechanics, combining various inks with berry juice and even real blood.”

The team also experimented with the photography, making the bold decision to use fashion photographer, Michael Doran, to shoot a non-fashion ad. “By using the soft, ‘beauty' lighting style seldom used when photographing food and still-life scenes, we could turn a simple idea into a piece of art,” says Daniels.

It was this out-of-the-box thinking which impressed Dinu's national sales director, Carey Maeder, who comments that the campaign is “something different and most definitely unique”.

The ads took first place for magazines in the CDF's Creative Circle Ad of the Month for May 2009.

Creative director: James Daniels
Art director: Chris Crawford
Copywriter: Glenn Curtis
Photographer: Michael Doran
Retoucher/digital artist: Herman Booyens