And so to Verisure, surely you must know this lot, for years they have specialised in rather annoying TV ads in which a group of friends discuss the joys of home security systems and the one who doesn’t have one rushes to get one?
Now we can only assume that its advertising has been handled in-house as earlier this year it made a big announcement that it had hired Brothers & Sisters as its first proper agency, tasking it with creating a TV campaign that will raise awareness of its products in a highly competitive market.
The company ran a competitive pitch after spending upwards of £30m on media over the past two years.
At the time, Brothers & Sisters chief executive Matt Charlton gushed: “Verisure is a hugely successful brand who have an ambition to do better and better creative work and we’re thrilled to have the opportunity to help them realise that ambition.”
Enter its first work, fronted by Strictly Come Dancing, One Show and Your Home Made Perfect star Angela Scanlon, in what is believed to be her first ever “cheeky” TV ad (well, apart from that one for Olay.)
The “better and better creative” opens with the Irish presenter sitting opposite a rather sad, nerdy looking bloke, who quite possibly is supposed to have special needs but most definitely has just been burgled.
As Scanlon sups on her cuppa, she says something along the lines of: “If burglars are after even this bloke’s stuff, we should all be worried. Get a Verisure alarm now.” (We admit, this is only an approximation as we have only seen this ad once and it has received no PR and is not even available on YouTube, so you will have to take our word for it.)
On appointing Brothers & Sisters, Verisure marketing director Daniel Valensi said: “We are delighted to choose Brothers & Sisters after an extensive pitch process. Their grasp of our business needs and how to evolve our creative impressed us all.”
So, what is the consensus around the Decision Marketing office?
Well, if this is “better and better creative”, god help us. Taking the piss out of people with special needs might have been a Little Britain speciality but is this really acceptable in advertising?
Naturally, we would not expect anything different from Verisure but, come on Brothers & Sisters, is this the best you can do?
Decision Marketing Adometer: A ‘where’s the craic in that Angela?’ 2 out of 10
