Paper: Times, The (London, England)
Title: Babycham grows up – Advertising campaign
Author: Lorna Vee
Date: September 21, 1988
“Babycham? I’d love a Babycham.” Some people might love one, but the question is, would they admit it? Babycham sales are worth Pounds 55 million. But despite this success three million regular drinkers and nine million at Christmas it is still attempting to recover from an image typified by the cloying antics of its Disneyesque fawn.
The latest commercial, by Saatchi & Saatchi, features an ordinary secretary who transforms her power suit into a sexy outfit, and wows the guests at a party. She, of course, drinks Babycham.
It is a development of Saatchi’s last commercial in which a Fifties-style couple enter a trendy bar. Everything stops when the girl asks for a Babycham. Whereas in that version a customer whose style credentials are obviously unimpeachable must give the drink his approval, in the latest one, the girl is confident of her own mind: she is not concerned with brush-offs from the doorman and the girls in the Ladies’ room because she has bought a bottle of Babycham.
This latest commercial was tested in the Central TV area, before moving to other regions. It will be seen in the London area in November, and is a radical departure from the original Babycham campaign.
Babycham was the second product to be advertised when commercial television launched in 1955. It burst on to the screen in the sentimental Walt Disney style with which it has become so strongly identified. When pubs offered little choice, Babycham became a popular drink for women and the diminutive bottle and champagne glass tended to associate it with special occasions and celebrations.
This kind of promotion persisted, although it was to become slightly more racy during the Sixties when the commercials featured loving couples, and then went through an aberration antics on the beach with Patrick Mower in the mid-Seventies. At this point sales began to suffer as the brand came under threat from the growing popularity of wine and spirits.
Four years ago the makers of Babycham, Showerings, part of the Allied Lyons stable, explored the possibility of boosting sales. Their research established that although its core drinkers still felt affection for the drink they were embarrassed to order it in what they considered sophisticated situations. Yet Babycham was in line with the new trend towards lighter, lower-alcohol drinking. Showerings decided Babycham had plenty of potential.
The first step was to win back the core drinkers who were drinking Babycham less frequently, and Saatchi’s first ad returned to the Walt Disney style to re-establish its traditional image. The next problem, however, was how to
update that image.
“Babycham’s advertising had become out of touch with the contemporary woman,” explains Paul Bainsfair, of Saatchis. “Our task was to express the message in contemporary terms while retaining the brand’s heritage.” Hence, for example, a strutting rather than frolicking deer, wearing Raybans and appearing only as a symbol at the end of a commercial.
Babycham has a mass market appeal, largely with women between 18 and 25. If London trendies observing the last ad (“Trendy Joint”), with its heavy emphasis on presenting Babycham as fashionable, thought they were the target
drinkers, they were wrong. The capital is a poor market for the drink.
“The danger in being trendy,” says Bainsfair, “is that things go out of fashion. Babycham is aimed at ordinary people.”
The advertising’s role is to make people feel confident enough to order a Babycham. Many people still remember it as the first alcoholic drink they were introduced to, and feel embarrassed about ordering it a couple of years later. Rumour has it that Saatchis originally planned to have the barman blow dust off the Babycham bottle. This was aborted, as was the proposed final catchline: “Babycham, so out that it’s in”.
Research by the agency for the latest commercial revealed that target women now wanted a more contemporary image.
“The woman we’re aiming for is in her early to mid twenties, and she’s actually not very confident,” explains Bainsfair. “The transformation seen in the current commercial is how she would like to behave.”
“Trendy Joint” was intended to attack the embarrassment factor surrounding Babycham. According to Gray Olliver, marketing director at Showerings: “Just as in `Trendy Joint’, all the trendies stop and think. We wanted people to do the same.” And he is confident that Babycham is moving in the right direction: sales have increased by 41 per cent in two years.
Author: Lorna Vee