The fourth ad ties in more directly with the Academy Awards, flagged to viewers as directed by Oscar winning actress. The ad, “Inspiration Café,” profiles Lisa Nigro, the founder of a restaurant that serves the homeless and provides job training and fellowship to its customers. “After reading thousands of inspiring stories, our team felt that Lisa Nigro’s story exemplifies the purpose of TrueNorth-giving life extraordinary meaning,” says Regan Ebert, vice president and general manager and the executive in charge of launching the new brand. The ad campaign breaking during the Oscars, which costs Frito-Lay about $1.4 million per ad, carries a risk that such high-mindedness around eating a nutty snack could come off as overly earnest.
“Not at all…True North is a special brand about passions, and people have become very passionate about the food they eat and their health,” says Kevin McKeon, partner and executive creative director at , the New York ad agency that created the campaign. Other brands, such as Volvo, have also tried to associate themselves with profiles of people doing inspiring things and making contributions to the community. But it could be that the TrueNorth messages will resonate better amidst a deep economic Recession. “It’s all in the execution with ads of this genre, but associating a brand with positive, hopeful, uplifting stories when so much of the news is awful might well be a better idea than trying to make people laugh for a few seconds,” says consultant Dennis Keene. “the whole mood and execution of the ad, too, looks, like it could have tied into Barack Obama’s campaign message, and given his approval ratings that’s not a bad thing eiether,” says Keene.
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