Surreal – a UK-based cereal brand has stood out in a fiercely competitive market thanks to its humorous and creative advertising ideas. Recently, Surreal continued to surprise users with a smart and calculated OOH campaign, inspired by the criticism the brand had faced.
Despite “shining” with interesting campaigns, Surreal has received a lot of criticism that their previous ads were “only for Marketers”. Not afraid to “touch”, Surreal officially “countered” that criticism with a campaign that was exactly as rumored.
The campaign message is simply “If you don’t work in marketing, please ignore this advertisement: Please buy our cereal”. The brand has turned street billboards into familiar marketing materials like a natural and humorous conversation with its own customers.
Surreal Turns OOH Into Familiar Marketing Publications
Surreal also cleverly chose the language and design of the publication in the typical style of the Marketing industry such as “Email brief, Flowchart” or Comic Sans font. It is this closeness that makes “industry insiders” feel excited.
The “Email Brief” design is characteristic and familiar to “industry insiders”
Sharing about this series of creative advertisements, Surreal representative said: “Every time Surreal posts an ad here, we get comments like, ‘This is just an ad for marketers.’ So we decided to do a proper marketing campaign just for marketers. If you are a marketer, please watch these ads and then buy our cereal.”
The campaign is a “rebuttal” to the “rumors” about Surreal.
As a clever “rebuttal” to negative criticism, this OOH campaign by Surreal simultaneously shows understanding and respect for Marketers in particular and the Marketing industry in general. Immediately after its launch, the campaign quickly went viral on Social Media platforms and was widely shared by people in the industry.
Not only attracting real marketers, the “exclusive” nature of Surreal’s message makes even “outsiders” curious. Passersby are attracted by the natural “conversation” between Surreal and Marketers. Although it is a campaign exclusively for marketers, Surreal has successfully attracted the attention of many passersby, regardless of whether they are a marketer or not.
Advertising “only for Marketers” but makes everyone curious
It is known that this is not the first time that the famous cereal brand from the UK has scored points with users with creativity and humor in its marketing activities. Previously in 2021, Surreal rose like a bright star in the saturated cereal market with a campaign impersonating famous stars. Surreal’s marketing team decided to include individuals with the same names as celebrities such as Serena Williams, Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson and even Cristiano Ronaldo in the advertising content. A series of billboards with “famous” names by Surreal quickly attracted viewers.
Surreal’s “fake celebrity name” campaign received mixed reviews.
However, the campaign also received mixed reviews. While some appreciated the humor and creativity, many in the creative community criticized the campaign for not delivering on the USP and the result was that this OOH ad could have been for any cereal brand: “Not enough information about the actual cereal, except that it’s Dwayne Johnson’s favorite cereal.” or “Pretty boring and bland. Using the name of a famous actor instead of product details.”
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