Ocean Basket's Talking Fish are back!

You may have seen the series of Ocean Basket ads that feature human-looking fish exchanging off-the-wall conversations. Now, in the latest instalment which started on the 25th of March, the Talking Fish have been taken to the next level.

The new treatment involves a music video, whereby the "Sole Sisters" are introduced. They will have your foot tapping and you singing their melodic tunes as they tell you all about the 'two sweet soles and calamari' special to be found at your nearest Ocean Basket retailer. The crux of the latest campaign is to drive consumers to Ocean Basket retailers from now until the end of May for the chain's Sole, Calamari and Appletiser special for 'onlee 144 bucks'.

"When choosing a consistent theme, we have to find ways of refreshing the theme continuously, not only through new topical approaches, but also through new treatments," says Pepe Marais, Executive Creative Director of Joe Public.

The Ocean Basket brand world

One may ask: why this ongoing theme? Joe Public's Strategic Director Laurent Marty explains:

"We, as an agency, are very interested in those strategies that help a brand "draw more blood of a smaller stone". For example, we have always used "retail strategies" for Ocean Basket: retail that builds the brand, instead doing a costly job on two separate fronts.

Secondly, we have found that one of the most important rules for an advertiser with limited budget is the introduction of a recurring pattern, applied with ruthless consistency," he says. In the case of Ocean Basket, we have thus developed a "brand world", which really is a consistent creative platform that becomes instantly recognisable and attributable to Ocean Basket."

Consumer feedback

This strategy seems to be borne out by the Adtrack results measured on the previous Talking Fish campaigns.

Firstly, prompted awareness has been significantly above norm. Independent research conducted by Millward Brown had previously shown the Talking Fish campaign to have high levels of prompted awareness. The average norm is 36% and Oceans basket achieved a reading of 45% which is 9% above the norm. Secondly liking has been high with a score of 7.9.

Most importantly, these results were achieved with 100 ARS less than the required norms.

Lizelle Shawe from Millward Brown advised that the campaign had "outstanding breakthrough on a limited budget due to distinct and memorable creative." With confirmation from the research, client and agency knew the communication was well liked and stood out amongst the clutter.

The Sole Sisters have been making their debut on Mnet since the 25th of March.

The team involved in the campaign were: (from Ocean Basket) Brendan McGhee (Marketing Director) and Xanthe Nichas (Brand Manager). From Joe Public: Pepe Marias (ECD), Bronwyn James (Production Director), Amanda Swanepoel (Production Manager) Xolisa Dyeshana (Creative Director/Copywriter), Simon Keeling (Art Director) and Melissa Kelly (Account Manager). The production house for this campaign is Public Pool. It was directed by Craig Fergusson.

Click here to view the ad. [7MB]