Blast off to the year 3000 to hear Chris, Sam and John share the horrifying truth about Slurm, and then turn it into a one-of-a-kind soda ad that’s pure crap.
Transcript
ADtempt-003-Slurm • 47:53
Chris Hanna 00:00
Good news, everyone!
Sam McKinney 00:02
Did they bring Nixon’s head back to life?
Chris Hanna 00:03
Nope. Well, maybe but that’s not what the good news is.
John Fish 00:07
Did you finally get accepted into Mars university?
Chris Hanna 00:11
I checked, my application status still says “in orbit.”
Sam McKinney 00:14
Oh, I know. You said dating a robot.
Chris Hanna 00:17
I was, until Fernando-tron got…amnesia.
Sam McKinney 00:24
Must have been your magnetic personality.
Chris Hanna 00:29
Anyway, the good news is that today’s product is from one of my favorite TV shows, set and the not so far off year of 3000.
John Fish 00:36
Shut up and take my money.
Chris Hanna 00:38
All in good time, john.
Sam McKinney 00:45
Welcome back to ADtempted where we make ads for things that don’t really need them. I’m Sam, and I’m addicted to art.
John Fish 00:51
i’m john and i write things.
Chris Hanna 00:53
I’m Chris and I’m 40% copy.
Sam McKinney 00:55
This is a very special episode because we are recording on John’s birthday. Happy birthday. Man
John Fish 01:02
Ah, thanks, guys.
Chris Hanna 01:03
How does it feel john? One year older, one year wiser?
John Fish 01:08
Feels pretty good. We’ll see what happens. I’m hoping next year is better than this year. Anyway, as always, here’s the plan. We’re going to go around and share some thought starters. Then we’ll collaborate and execute a campaign and finally present it to you, our audience. What’s our product today, Chris?
Chris Hanna 01:28
Our product today is Slurm, the ooze-y soda from the TV show Futurama. Slurm is a delicious soft drink with a mysterious secret ingredient. It is highly addictive and the more you drink it, the more you crave to quench your never ending thirst. Slurm is the economic lifeblood of the planet Wormulon, and if the secret of the soft drink gets out, it could destroy their business and wreck economic ruin. Spoiler alert: the secret ingredient is an excrement from the Queen of Wormulon’s butt. Our target audience today is parents with kids aged 7 to 13 because we wanted to challenge ourselves to see what we could do with the soda market, which is an increasingly tough thing to break into.
Party Babe #1 02:15
Look, it’s Slurms Mackenzie!
Party Babe #2 02:15
He’s the original party worm!
Slurms Mackenzie 02:22
Whimmy-wham-wham-wazzle! Let’s party!
Chris Hanna 02:25
let’s let the birthday boy go first with his thought starters.
John Fish 02:30
Oh, well, thank you, Chris. All right. Well, I have came up with I’ve I have come up with two insights. I can’t fucking talk. Because I’m so flustered with the internet. Leave it in. don’t edit that out. Ashley. Okay, anyway: The natural choice. High Fructose Corn – high fructose corn syrup has cornered the soda market, leaving you, the parent, with terrible options to quench your kids’ thirst. The worms here on Wormulon believe your kids deserve better. They don’t need all that crap in their drink. So using our secret formula, we made Slurm and all natural soda that comes from a sustainable source. Not only are your kids getting a high quality soft drink, but it also is universally sustainable. The best of both worlds making slurm the natural choice. Obviously a bit of wordplay there, natural, I think, Okay, I think it’s kind of like I think one of the ways we corner parents is totally going like the organic natural route. So that’s where I was coming from with this one.
Chris Hanna 03:43
Yeah, for for those who aren’t familiar with the episode, it’s basically revealed that Slurm is literally just a product from the like Queen worm’s butt, it’s like nothing else. It’s straight up just her excrement.
Grunka Lunka’s 03:58
Yeah, she eats fruit, I guess, or some sort of blueberry?
Chris Hanna 04:03
Aren’t they, like snozzle berries or something?
Sam McKinney 04:06
and then she poops it out. And that’s Slurm. which makes sense cuz that’s what bees and ants and all of them do.
John Fish 04:18
Well, Sam, they even make reference to that in the episode about how we eat bee’s honey. So right on the nose there, man, right on the nose.
Chris Hanna 04:31
I like your inclusion of the best of both worlds because you’re getting the best of, I guess like Earth’s choice and also Wormulon’s choice.
John Fish 04:39
Yeah, yeah, it’s kind of playing on that. And then also, like, the natural choice is like, Oh, it’s natural. And then, like, natural choices also kind of a saying that’s like, “Oh, well, naturally I chose to do…” right. So it’s just kind of like, Oh, that’s the easiest thing to do. And I think playing on the organic nature is really a good way to a parent’s heart. Yeah.
Sam McKinney 05:03
Yeah, I think it works.
John Fish 05:05
Awesome. Okay. The other quick one I got is make your children cool again. Tired of your kid coming home and complaining complaining about bullies? Are your children whiny wimps who deep down you know won’t ever have those golden years? Life is tough for kids. Why limit what they drink? Slurm is a thirst quenching drink that can also make your child cool. So help Slurm make your kid the coolest on the block.
Chris Hanna 05:42
I have a question: What does “they’re not gonna have their golden years” mean? Are they gonna die because they’re wimps?
John Fish 05:49
So the golden years from my understanding, and I’m probably totally wrong, but how I look at the golden years are like, the best years of your life right? Most of those years are not in high school. So I’m basically saying that these kids are not going to ever have like, very good years. Like, it’s just gonna be kind of, meh. You know what I mean? Like that.
Chris Hanna 06:12
I love the values that we’re teaching on this podcast.
Grunka Lunka’s 06:16
I was, I totally agree with this one, I was actually trying to figure out how to position Slurm as something that makes you cool and, and fancy. Which I can go into, right.
John Fish 06:28
So, it’s kind of funny, like Sam like to that point. Like, it’s like, this is almost from the kids perspective. It’s almost making the child’s argument to your parents, right? is how this is kind of what this insight is coming from. Like, it’s like, because you know, as a kid, when you’re like, “Mom, I want this I want this, I want this.” They’re just basically like, “shut up. I’m done.” But if we target the parents, like we’re from the kid but you using you know, a little bit better arguments then maybe this puts forth, we could, uh that’s that’s the way we could get to their their heartstrings.
Sam McKinney 07:08
slurm is cheaper the name brand clothes and cigarettes. The two other ways.
Chris Hanna 07:17
Sam, do you want to go next?
Grunka Lunka’s 07:19
Okay. Minor more insights I didn’t really I figured we would have very similar thoughts. So I didn’t want to like jump in too hard on some things. Kids not doing their chores, not eating their vegetables, not picking up after themselves. Give them a Slurm. It’s so addicting. They’ll do anything to get their next sip. Basically, instead of an allowance, just give them some Slurm it they’ll they’ll do anything.
Chris Hanna 07:44
I mean, the tagline in the show for slurm is, “it’s highly addictive!”
Grunka Lunka’s 07:48
Yeah. And it’s healthy. So it’s not a bad thing, which is my next insight. It’s literally organic, vegetarian and naturally processed. It’s the best healthy crap you’ll ever Drink. Then we have, it’s a taste so unique, it’s out of this world, literally like nothing you’ve ever experienced.
Chris Hanna 08:10
Hmm, yeah, I had that thought too early on, and I wasn’t quite sure if I should include it or not. So I’m glad that you did.
Grunka Lunka’s 08:17
It’s it’s an interesting kind of aspect to it. And then for my last insight, this is kind of more of a real world example. I don’t know if you guys heard of civet coffee? I don’t even know that’s how you say it. The civet cat is in Asia, I believe in the cat eats coffee berries off the plant and then poops it out. It’s partially digested and fermented and people collect it and make coffee out of it and it’s supposed to be better. It’s like the world’s most expensive coffee. It’s like $100 per cup.
Chris Hanna 08:51
Is it $100 better than like, my like $4 cup of coffee or whatever?
Grunka Lunka’s 08:57
professional taste testers have said. It’s not, but it’s that cool factor. Like I’m drinking coffee out of some cat’s ass. So that makes me better than you. I’m more refined, which kind of makes me think that kind of goes hand in hand with the cool factor that John was talking about.
Chris Hanna 09:17
Hmm. Slurm is for snobs.
Sam McKinney 09:20
Snobby Slurms.
John Fish 09:21
Snobbies! Sam, a line that I really like that you wrote down here is “the best healthy crap you’ll ever drink.” I think it could be really fun if we lean in to, to that kind of, you know, like, who needs any of this crap when you can have Slurm right?
Sam McKinney 09:42
Yeah.
John Fish 09:43
It’s just like basically talking about how crappy other sodas are when this is crap, right?
Sam McKinney 09:49
This is literal crap.
John Fish 09:50
But I also I also really love the idea of using Slurm as like a theme to get your children addicted to so they do things that you want them to do.
Grunka Lunka’s 10:03
What would you do for a Klondike bar but soda form?
John Fish 10:07
I love it. All right, let’s hear. Let’s hear ’em, Chris.
Chris Hanna 10:11
Alrighty, we’re gonna hear some of the same thoughts. So prepare yourselves. First one. These days, parents are hyper vigilant about nutrition labels because of all the crap put into processed foods like soda. But Slurm of course is different. It’s technically an organic product that is completely free of any earthly sugars, additives or preservatives. That means no added toxins to your kids favorite soft drink, just real Slurm from real worms. Second, I’m taking Sam’s idea and putting it a little step further. Any parent will tell you that raising preteens is a nightmare. They become rebellious, they’re hopped up on hormones, and most want nothing to do with the people who raised them. However, Slurm might be just addictive enough to get those rambunctious tweens to behave and pay attention to their parents. Preteens can get into all sorts of bad stuff, but this is one addiction their parents can control. And last but not least, I just threw this in because I thought it was funny. Spoiler alert: in the end of the Slurm factory tour episode, the brand’s mascot sacrifices himself to save the main characters from certain doom. The soda brand now needs a new mascot, and who better than the Oompa Loompa-like workers in the episode who dance and sing in the Slurm factory? These small orange men, known as Grunka Lanka’s, can give Slurm a new voice that moves away from the disgusting truth about the product, and they can entertain both kids and parents with their ominous rhymes and dancing.
Grunka Lunka’s 11:38
I like the earth free soda because we all kind of have that we’re all leaning towards that sort of feel. But one of the lines that popped in my head was “why drink sodas that put in all that crap when you can drink Slurm which is purely crap?”
Chris Hanna 11:53
Our crap is better than their crap.
Sam McKinney 11:56
The best crap
Leela 11:58
I’ve never seen anyone so addicted to Slurm.
Fry 12:01
This is nothing! Back in high school, I used to drink 100 cans of cola a week, right up until my third heart attack.
John Fish 12:07
I feel like Yeah, no, I feel like we have kind of right now we have almost two different directions. We have one, where it’s like, almost just giving in to what the kids, giving in, the parents just giving into the kids, right? And just being like, Okay, fine. You get this, I’m going to get this for you. And that’s like, that goes with the addiction ones that you guys wrote and then, like, make your children cool, right? It’s kind of like just it’s like just the parents like being like, whatever, like I’m over it. And then the other one is, which I think is probably a little bit more obvious, is the natural choice right, or the natural choice or the earth free soda. And the why drink why drinks soda when you can drink Slurm type of type of brief right? And I think it’ll be interesting to see which one wins out out of those two thoughts there.
Grunka Lunka’s 13:08
Yeah, I think the way that I’m thinking about it is like, reward kids naturally. Or like, a never before drink that you’ve like never before taste or something like out of this world. Cool like you want to be the cool be the first ones that try it, because technically we’ll be launching this on earth because this probably doesn’t exist right now.
Chris Hanna 13:32
I’ll be honest, I am not seeing the cool factor thing as much as maybe you guys are. And perhaps you can sell me on it a little bit more? Is it just because of like the mascot Slurms Mackenzie being the original party worm that it makes you cool?
Grunka Lunka’s 13:48
I think it’s more the fact that it’s such a unique thing like cronuts, and all those things that they have. They come out with like you always wanted that the first one to try this new trend. It’s the new fad. So it’s like the Civet coffee. Do you really want to drink coffee, shit out by a cat, other than the fact that it’s cool because everyone else thinks it’s cool? That’s the question. I mean, I don’t know if it’s, it’s not a benefit, besides the fact that we would make it seem like it’s the next big thing.
Chris Hanna 14:21
Hmm. I see. So here would be my argument, then. I think that given that we’re trying to reach parents, not necessarily like, Well, I suppose that we’re trying to like reach kids, but we are trying to reach them through their parents, because parents are the ones who are making the rules and who also have the spending ability. And that to me says that we should probably go more for the reward kids naturally direction, and we can incorporate elements of like being cool. And having you know, like it being like this out of world flavor with the whole like nutrition natural aspect of it.
Grunka Lunka’s 15:03
the best way to do it is one benefit. And I think the strongest two are the natural. And then I guess, how would you present kids’ addiction to it? Would addiction be the benefit?
Chris Hanna 15:18
Well, I don’t think that addiction is the benefit so much as it is the
John Fish 15:22
Control.
Chris Hanna 15:23
Yeah, the things that you’re able to do. It’s like, the the addiction you can control.
John Fish 15:28
Yeah.
Chris Hanna 15:28
Rather, the addiction that parents control.
Grunka Lunka’s 15:31
Yeah. So I think those are the two directions that we should go. We play on the addiction factor or the natural factor. I think if we go the natural factor, we have more fun with this crap that play on words, which could be funny in the end, or we go more ridiculous and try and get kids addicted to the shit without any repercussions because it’s not bad for them. Well, is it? I don’t know. I don’t think they ever say it’s bad for you.
Chris Hanna 16:00
Well, there’s kind of a saying that says that anything you get addicted to probably isn’t great for you. But in terms of like what the show tells us about Slurm, it’s probably not great for you, because there’s this one version of Slurm called Slurm Loco that we can only assume is like a different flavor. And one of the characters eat so much or drinks so much of it, that he becomes radioactive and glows. So.
Grunka Lunka’s 16:29
is he radioactive? Or is he just glowing?
Chris Hanna 16:32
I think at one point, like he tries touching something and it like vaporizes before him.
Sam McKinney 16:39
Oh, yeah.
Chris Hanna 16:40
Yeah. So I mean, depending on who you ask, some people will say, hey, that’s not healthy for you. Other people will say, dude, you’re a Fantastic Four person, go out there and solve crime. Regardless. It’s probably not great for you. But you know, it’s the FDA hasn’t reviewed it yet, I don’t know how they would review it. So keep that in mind, I suppose.
Sam McKinney 17:07
Yeah. Okay. What do you think, John?
John Fish 17:10
As far as what direction I’m leaning more towards? or?
Chris Hanna 17:13
Yeah.
John Fish 17:14
I think probably the natural, reward naturally, or naturally rewards, because because Yeah, I think that’s just a pretty like that gets the parent. You know, if I was a parent that would be like kind of like, Oh yeah, that’s good. It’s good for my kids. But at the same time, I have to say, I do think it is a really funny idea. If we make the commercial or the ads almost as annoying as the kids asking their parents for the drink all the time.
Chris Hanna 17:45
So it’s like an endless stream of pop up ads wherever you go, like you’re on Amazon shopping for like a chair, and you all of a sudden get these ads that are like, “Can I have some Slurm?”
John Fish 17:57
Right. But that being said, the natural choice is also, or the natural reward naturally is also more natural. See what I did there?
Chris Hanna 18:06
So there’s one thing about that line that I want to I want to poke at a little bit. Because I think that the benefit is that it’s healthier for you in some way because it’s lacking all of these other things that are in it. And I think that the language that Sam was talking about, the crap, kind of lines up with that a little bit better than like reward naturally, because reward naturally is a testing a little bit more towards the addiction aspect that we were talking about.
John Fish 18:35
Right, No, that’s a good point. I think I agree there too, Chris.
Grunka Lunka’s 18:39
Yeah, I think the plane on the crap thing is a smarter way about it. It’ll it’ll get people to doubletake like, you’re talking about crap? What do you mean?
John Fish 18:49
Okay, here we go. Here we go: Why drink crap when you can drink crap?
Chris Hanna 18:58
Yeah, there was one point where I was Concepting and I was like is there a way that we can make it like a fancy product, like le Slurmé and then I realized that was a bad idea.
John Fish 19:09
Le Slurm.
Chris Hanna 19:10
Because there is this, just to talk about this idea that we’re not going to pursue for a second, there is this kind of interesting idea of in like an imported good that people don’t know that much about, and that you know, the best stuff is always the stuff that isn’t packaged in the factory, it’s like packaged by some, you know, smaller organization that doesn’t put nutrition labels on it because they’re big enough for like them to be regulated. I digress. Let’s sell some crap, shall we?
Grunka Lunka’s 19:46
Grunka Lunka dunkety doo, We’ve got a friendly warning for you, Grunka Lunka dunkety dasis, The secret of Slurm’s on a need-to-know basis.
Chris Hanna 19:58
Okay, so as much as I love that idea about like a pop up ad that follows you wherever you’re shopping, I’m not sure if it’s I guess like attesting to the insight as much as it was the the other thing that we’re talking about, addiction
John Fish 20:15
Yeah, so fortunately I don’t think,Yeah, I don’t think that was really much anymore.
Grunka Lunka’s 20:20
Yeah, that’s a different direction completely. So this time, how would you, how would we sell crap?
Chris Hanna 20:27
Well, I think it’s kind of what we were talking about earlier. Like, why, why have their crap when you can have our crap? And I don’t know maybe there’s something about like we cut out all the crap except for the crap that you really want or something. is there? Is there something about that because it comes out of a worm queen. So is there like a royal crap or we crap out royalty or stuff like that? Like some sort of- We crap out liquid gold.
John Fish 21:05
Let’s think about like us think about maybe if we think about placement, we can think it will come to us a little bit better. So like, Where? Where do we reach these parents? Like, is this gonna be like in store advertising? You know? Like, is this going to be by this soda’s like already
Chris Hanna 21:26
Something that tells me that might be a good way to go is if we want to juxtapose the idea of their crap versus our crap. Because I’m imagining in my head like some sort of in store display, that is like pointing to the sodas that’s on like the left and right, and is referencing the crap that they have in them versus like the crap that we have.
Sam McKinney 21:48
Yeah, it would end up being like a laundry list of ingredients for like, soda, normal soda, and all the different flavors and then on our side, it just Crap.
Chris Hanna 22:00
100% crap.
John Fish 22:03
That’s exactly where my head was going to there, right right there, Sam.
Chris Hanna 22:09
You know, it’s kind of funny is we there’s this kind of like thinking that a lot of like soda companies are sort of like pulling a fast one on consumers because they’re, you know, they hide all of these chemicals and toxins by saying things like additives or other natural flavors or whatever. And in a way, we’re the ones who like aren’t bullshitting them on what’s actually in our stuff. And I kind of love this idea of like, 100% crap, 0% bullshit.
John Fish 22:42
or like or no bullshit just crap.
Grunka Lunka’s 22:45
My thing would be RX bars. Their commercial campaign right now is no bullshit.
Chris Hanna 22:51
Do they actually say that in like the ad?
Grunka Lunka’s 22:54
I mean, it’s it’s their that’s their tagline is no bullshit.
John Fish 22:58
Wow.
Chris Hanna 23:00
Okay, so then maybe we can move away from bullshit if it’s already being used in like a really popular brand. And bew-bew-bew, going back to John’s point about placement. So the interesting thing to me is that I don’t feel like I actually see a whole lot of soda advertisements that are in store. Maybe that’s just me. I know that there’s like, you know, when you’re checking out in the at the grocery store, there’s like a Coca Cola-branded refrigerator that’s right there by the cash register. But besides that, I feel like soda advertising maybe takes place elsewhere? I’m not quite sure where.
Grunka Lunka’s 23:41
Pepsi and Coke do like huge big ideas, stuff, events and stuff just to get their name out there. But then there are like certain brands do like in-store promotions to kind of get certain like a stand or something that kind of gets your attention like Gatorade does that a lot, or they do a lot of programmatic stuff. You enter the code on the cap and you can win, there’s a big prize for whatever reason, or you can collect points.
Chris Hanna 24:06
Right? I will say that I not sure if like the high level stuff is right for Slurm because people probably aren’t as like familiar with it as like Pepsi and Coke.
Grunka Lunka’s 24:16
Yes. If we go health tonic, like kombucha that’s more social and taste tests at events, getting your name out there. So maybe it’s like, experiential or like taste tests. Something like that. I don’t know though. It’s gonna be interesting because do we how far into like, are we tongue in cheek eating crap, are we coming out and say, “Hey, this is crap. This is literal shit from something,” like we I think we needed to decide that.
Chris Hanna 24:43
Hmm.
John Fish 24:44
I think that we’re not saying that. I think that we’re like, I think that we’re saying that it’s crap. But I think that we’re not saying that like, “Oh, this comes from a worm’s butt.”
Grunka Lunka’s 24:57
it’s a organically produced compound created through natural processes. Like it’s a single compound. That’s the way maybe that’s the way we should. Or maybe we come up with a an anagram with crap. Like,
John Fish 25:12
I was just gonna say what if it’s an anagram like…crap is a hard one to do like it
Sam McKinney 25:20
Created Rectal something.
John Fish 25:25
We can’t have rectal in it, Sam.
Grunka Lunka’s 25:28
I know it’s just hilarious.
Chris Hanna 25:34
Here’s what I will say as someone who is very much in touch with their middle school grade sense of humor. If I was like a kid and I saw crap on like a soda, I would kind of be interested in it. At the very least, I would giggle and then I would be like, “Hey, Mom, look, it’s crap.”
Grunka Lunka’s 25:53
Yeah, I think I think the best way since we’re kind of marketing towards kids having fun with it, but then also their parents like we, we play off the crap part as if it’s like a tongue in cheek thing. Like, it’s like, “Hey, we’re crap.” But it’s like we’re actually crap. But you don’t know that we’re actually crap. Like we we lean into it so far that people assume that we’re joking.
Sam McKinney 26:20
So when they come back to sue us, we’re like, “But hey, we told you up front. It was crap.”
John Fish 26:25
right.
Chris Hanna 26:26
This is crap!
John Fish 26:28
I think No, I think that’s kind of the way to go. Like, yeah, I agree. I like that. I think that’s really funny. And it does play to both the parents and the kids.
Grunka Lunka’s 26:39
And then if we do that, there’s like, me we have an experiential pop up that goes everywhere and it’s just “try some crap.” And it’s just like, we have a bunch of-
Chris Hanna 26:49
The crap booth?
Grunka Lunka’s 26:52
Yeah, stuff like that, like just play heavily into it, but it’s like, try some crap and it’s like, you go into an outhouse, but it’s actually a refrigerator full of Slurm.
Chris Hanna 27:06
So you so you open the Porta Potty, step in and someone standing there and they’re like “Hello, would you like to try some crap today?”
Sam McKinney 27:14
Take some crap.
John Fish 27:16
Free crap.
Chris Hanna 27:17
if you really awkward if they just wanted to use the bathroom. Yeah, I was kind of thinking about the like taste testing experiential thing too. And maybe you could almost like make a game out of it or it’s like spot the crap or like taste the crap where you can like give people like different kinds of soda. And then you can tell them like, “so which one of these has crap in it?” And then you’re like, Oh, I don’t know, that one?” and it’s like, “yeah, it’s got sucralose and maltodextrin and whatever else the hell else is in Coca Cola.”
Grunka Lunka’s 27:53
This makes me think of I’m trying to think of how to say this. So the soda junk food market has always been referred to as crap, crap food stuff like that. So what if the line is something like making crap good again? Like we’re making soda good again, but really it’s we’re making shit good again? There’s kind of that double play.
Chris Hanna 28:19
Was it good? Yeah I think like “better” is probably the way to go, was the soda industry like really not crap at some point?
Grunka Lunka’s 28:29
Um I mean when coke had cocaine in it I’m sure a lot of people liked it.
Chris Hanna 28:35
Fair point, fair point. I’m also trying to think of this I guess like comparison to because in my mind like the thing that parents are most conscious of is like the stuff that isn’t supposed to be in the soda. And I’m wondering if there’s maybe like a parallel between prou- like proudly wearing like the crap, you know branding, but also pointing out like the junk so to speak that isn’t in it.
Grunka Lunka’s 29:05
Yeah, I think that’s, because you’re going to get your kids soda. No matter what. I don’t know any kid who has never, well, there’s probably one or two, that has never had soda in their entire life. So it’s feels like make better crap or making better crap or the better crap. “Slurm. The better crap.”
Chris Hanna 29:25
The better crap. Yeah. I was also thinking of like, “all crap no junk” or something.
Sam McKinney 29:32
Yeah.
John Fish 29:32
I kind of like “just crap.”
Grunka Lunka’s 29:35
that the I think that doesn’t come off as like healthy though. In that phrase. Like better crap says “hey, the sodas it’s sold as bad for you, but at least we’re better than the other sodas” but just crap is like, “well, it’s just the bad stuff or just just shit.”
John Fish 29:51
What if Okay, okay, what if like, obviously, and I don’t know if this if this works for it, but like, we know it’s crap. Right? Yeah, we know it’s crap. No one else knows it’s crap.
Chris Hanna 30:03
Mm hmm.
John Fish 30:04
Well, could this get-
Chris Hanna 30:06
So I have a question about that actually.
John Fish 30:08
Yeah.
Chris Hanna 30:08
Are they gonna read the ingredients and be like, “Oh, so that’s what it made what it’s made of”?
Grunka Lunka’s 30:14
That’s where the whole organically created compounds comes into play.
Chris Hanna 30:22
That’s how we’re phrasing it!
Sam McKinney 30:25
Yeah, maybe.
John Fish 30:26
But like that’s the thing though. Like we could we could play on the fact that everyone else is crap. Look at all the stuff that’s in there, ours is just a natural, sustainable. We can use words that are not saying that it’s crap, but are kind of like dropping hints at it you know, like a regenerated reusable ingredients. ingredients, recycled ingredients.
Chris Hanna 30:50
Minimally processed.
John Fish 30:52
Yeah, no, like, I’m serious. Like, I think that’s more fun, and then we don’t have the weird issue like “This is crap.”
Grunka Lunka’s 31:01
I personally think they live hand in hand. Like I think the the tagline is something like “the better crap.” But that’s just the tagline and the copy or the words and everything else is very much like playing on that recycled ingredients or minimally processed or er- organically or naturally processed something like that. And this is speaking to our audience because we’re making an ad to sell to real people. But our audience also knows that this is crap, because we told them. So it’s like an inside joke that they’ll get, that they’ll find this ad to be funny, if that makes sense.
John Fish 31:38
Yeah, that makes sense. Okay, so then, like naturally processed crap.
Chris Hanna 31:42
I was trying to think of line with some something like, “This crap’s natural, there’s isn’t” or something like that.
John Fish 31:50
I don’t know. I don’t know. But I feel like that almost like, because I hear you Chris. Like I was thinking the same way. How do we say that without being so A-B-C?
Sam McKinney 31:59
Yeah.
John Fish 31:59
And I’m wondering if the placement of this and grocery stores is enough to be like, Oh yeah, cuz it’s like buy all this other like, garbage. That’s why it’s saying like naturally processed crap, right?
Grunka Lunka’s 32:12
I think. Yeah, when we’re writing when the the mindset we should be in is when we’re saying crap, we’re talking soda, and that’s how we should write
John Fish 32:22
Yes. Yeah right.
Sam McKinney 32:24
Really what we’re talking about is that they’re the you’re gonna drink crap anyways at least make this better.
John Fish 32:29
yeah why not drink naturally processed crap?
Grunka Lunka’s 32:32
Yeah I think that’s the the funny angle and then it has the extra layer of it’s actually crap it’s actually shit.
Chris Hanna 32:42
So it sounds like we’re kind of gravitating around this idea of doing something in store.
Grunka Lunka’s 32:46
I don’t know Are there other because you kind of just went there and
John Fish 32:49
I think we said that because that’s kind of like where that’s like the easiest like oh that’s where people would definitely see this right?
Chris Hanna 32:56
Mm hmm
John Fish 32:57
I think there’s probably other areas too
Sam McKinney 33:00
movie movie theaters would be a good place to, um, we could do a partnership with fast food. Or like 711, or…
Chris Hanna 33:11
Is there like a, an anti fast food-fast food place? Funny you say that! Oh!
Sam McKinney 33:18
Ashley is currently watching Supersize Me 2 where the guy makes a fast food restaurant. And that is exactly what you’re talking about.
Chris Hanna 33:29
So I didn’t have that much soda as a kid, but if you guys did, where were you drinking it most of the time?
Sam McKinney 33:36
Everywhere.
Chris Hanna 33:37
Everywhere! Okay, skate park? Where else?
Sam McKinney 33:41
I mean, in the Midwest, you don’t drink water. You drink soda. Some people drink water, but they’re weird.
Chris Hanna 33:47
John, what about you?
John Fish 33:48
Ooh, you know, I was drinking it. You know? On the school playground.
Chris Hanna 33:55
Are you Canadian all of a sudden?
John Fish 33:57
No, I was drinking, do you guys know what I drank? Like, all the time, like when I was like a kid, like in this demo? Was were these drinks called Fruitopia.
Sam McKinney 34:09
Oh yeah, the Fruitopia. That’s bad shit. That’s a lot of sugar.
John Fish 34:14
Surge is a soda that I kind of like whenever I think of Slurm, I think of Surge and they’re like the same colors.
Sam McKinney 34:21
Surge is back.
Chris Hanna 34:22
It has resurged.
Sam McKinney 34:24
I don’t know like my parents also didn’t really control what I drank and ate. That just wasn’t how they were. And I also wasn’t the type, like I never really loved sugar.
Chris Hanna 34:33
Were you a child, John?
John Fish 34:35
No, I was born a 29 year old man.
Chris Hanna 34:40
29 years ago today?
John Fish 34:41
29 years ago today!
Chris Hanna 34:43
From my experience with, not soda but my thing was more candy, a lot of the time I would get it from like a gas station with my parents like doing errands and they would have to get gas and I would clamor to go inside and get something and they’d be like, yeah, okay, whatever.
John Fish 34:59
Um, I think I might have figured out our like, “the good crap.”
Chris Hanna 35:05
I kind of like that actually. It’s kind of simple.
Grunka Lunka’s 35:09
Yeah, I think that works.
John Fish 35:11
Slurm. The Good Crap.
Chris Hanna 35:13
Yeah, I like that a lot. Let’s go with that.
Sam McKinney 35:15
Now how do we translate that into ads?
John Fish 35:20
Oh, my job here is done.
Chris Hanna 35:24
Stepping out?
John Fish 35:25
You guys like, right? No, um, yeah. What about, remember those meth commercials where it shows like meth mouth, and they’re just like gnarly pictures right?
Chris Hanna 35:37
Oh, and there’s all that like truth advertising, right? Dude, totally. I feel like that’s what this campaign might be actually. In my head I’m imagining like, this kid who’s like trying to walk home from school. And there’s like a bunch of kids in like biker, outfits and they’re all drinking like, the brand name sodas. And they’re like, “Hey kid, give us your your Soda money,” and then like a hero, like swoops in and he’s he’s the good hero because he drinks the good crap or something.
Grunka Lunka’s 36:08
All I can think about right now is if you have to attack somebody else, it’s not a good ad.
Chris Hanna 36:14
Fine, Sam. We won’t attack anyone else.
John Fish 36:17
what my train of thought has always been kind of, if you’re number one, you don’t attack anyone.
Sam McKinney 36:24
Yeah, I mean if you’re the underdog it’s you have a lot more to fight for.
John Fish 36:28
Yeah, it’s more it’s more accepted if you’re the underdog for sure. But I get I hear your point. I don’t know if it’s like attacking other brands as much as it is saying pointing out an alternative, right? It’s not necessarily crapping on soda. It’s more just saying like, this is actually a little bit better for you. This is better crap.
Grunka Lunka’s 36:49
I guess if it’s more like attacking the the whole market in general, like the whole space of soda in general? And “we’re better than that.”
Chris Hanna 36:58
Yeah, I don’t think that attacking is the right way to go either. I was just thinking that in the vein of those like Truth ads, a lot of the time they’ll present some scenario where there’s this like group of people who’s doing the bad thing, and they end up like paying for it in some like way or fashion. And I think that there’s also like the good point of, if we are talking about like the good crap, we are kind of insinuating that there is bad crap out there.
Sam McKinney 37:28
Yeah.
Chris Hanna 37:28
And so not so much attacking so much as it is just making an observation about the other alternatives besides Slurm that are out there.
Grunka Lunka’s 37:37
And I’m good with that. I think that works. I think, inferring that we’re better than everyone else, without being too direct works. Like we don’t have this stuff, we don’t have, we don’t need high fructose corn syrup. We don’t need all this other shit. We’re the good crap. We can stand on our own naturally process compounds.
John Fish 37:57
What about Yeah, I don’t know. Like what if it is how They’re like that then it’s like news. No high fructose corn syrup. Slurm, the good crap?
Chris Hanna 38:06
Here’s what I’m thinking. Something that I’ve noticed a lot with, like, especially like alcohol advertising, bear with me for a second, is that I feel like the benefit of like enjoying this lighter beer, even though it’s still like a light beer, is like important, you have to have this idea that whatever it is you’re selling, if even if it’s like a healthier version of the typical version of the thing, it’s still in a way like an indulgence or it’s something to like, be enjoyed. And that’s kind of got me thinking about this idea of like, don’t totally discount this as like, a health drink. Because for all we know, like, it probably isn’t, you know, it’s addictive in some form.
Sam McKinney 38:54
Yeah.
Chris Hanna 38:54
Your kid is not gonna be able to stop drinking it. And so in my mind, it’s like you like to just take out like the junk from like the junk food. It’s almost sort of like, junk-free junk food, in a way if that makes sense. Like don’t market it as like a health tonic, just say like, this is still like a soda. This is still something that hopefully you’re not going to give your kid like three of every single day, but it’s like the healthy it’s the better version of that thing.
John Fish 39:26
Yeah. Yeah. Should it just be then like, real crap?
Chris Hanna 39:31
No, I’m saying like, I think the tagline the good crap is smart because it’s attesting to that idea. Like it’s, it’s the crap that you are going to be giving your kid at the end of the day but it’s like the better good, so to speak, version of that. And so thing that whatever other like accompanying copy that we come up with, if there is any, and I think if there is any, it should be real simple. Like you guys pointed out with a lot of other brands, creating like the lighter, healthier version of things. It’s usually a lot simpler in nature. I’m just saying that like, we should continue to message like, yeah, like, this is like a soda. This is an essence like junk food, but it just doesn’t have that junk in it, so to speak.
John Fish 40:15
Mm hmm. That’s interesting. That’s an interesting point, though. Like, does this need that much more copy? If it is just kind of like more of a rebranding, making it look a lot cleaner, making it look nice. making it look just natural, I guess.
Sam McKinney 40:31
It would, it would definitely be a rebranding of some sort. So there’s gonna be some explorations there. But I think like, minimally processed, or naturally processed, something like that. And then a follow up line, like, something about that process or-
John Fish 40:46
Dude, I honestly I honestly, like, naturally processed, white background, picture of the soda can, and then Slurm the good stuff. Because I think that’s I think Chris brings up a good point. Like, you kind of don’t want that much copy. And I feel like that kind of gets across the point pretty pretty well. I don’t know, I just like that, I can even see the ad right now in my mind.
Sam McKinney 41:13
there is something to be said about it being very simple because it’s one ingredient. I don’t know about being on white, it’d be like in a natural setting.
John Fish 41:21
Alright, art director.
Sam McKinney 41:23
Like just imagine like a nice organic-looking, like kind of- Forest background? Like on a table, with a nice park in the background, or something like a wood table it just sitting Right. And then like the can designs very natural-looking like, earthy colors with the Slurm green and the words but the logo will be a little bit different. And then the tagline: the good crap. Yeah, I think that I think that works.
John Fish 41:52
Should we think of other funny ways to kind of get to the point of what it is without saying what it is?
Sam McKinney 41:56
Yes.
Chris Hanna 41:57
Yeah. Um, let’s see. So it is naturally processed is, I think the idea of like it being a single ingredient is also a selling point.
Sam McKinney 42:07
Is it one ingredient? Or is it like no excess ingradients?
Chris Hanna 42:12
I don’t know, my mind keeps going back to this idea of like, like “100% naturally processed soda, 0% junk” or something like that.
John Fish 42:21
It just doesn’t get to that, the kind of pun that we’re kind of also like trying to hit too.
Sam McKinney 42:26
Yeah, and if we’re gonna keep the same sort of pattern, even keep it around two or three words, it’ll feel like it’s in the same sort of world.
Chris Hanna 42:34
It’s canned at the source.
Sam McKinney 42:38
It’s feels very much like natural spring water.
John Fish 42:43
I like it though. I think I think that’s funny. I just, I mean, it just puts the picture in my head of her like, shitting in the cans in the cartoon.
Chris Hanna 42:52
Okay, um, so we’ve got naturally naturally processed, canned at the source. I like additive free, but I feel like it, like there’s something else that it needs, you know? What if it’s “all organic ingredient” without the “s”? I kind of like that. All organic ingredient. Is there something maybe about like other soda that we can think about that – what about like flavoring, for example? Out of this world flavor.
Sam McKinney 43:26
Unworldly flavor.
John Fish 43:27
I don’t think “unworldly” works like I think that unfortunately gets away from natural a little bit.
Chris Hanna 43:32
Hmmm. Pure flavor.
Sam McKinney 43:35
It could also be since there’s only one ingredient maybe there’s a like, naked flavor. Like it’s just one thing. It’s just flavor.
Chris Hanna 43:44
Naked.
John Fish 43:45
I like both, Chris said, pure flavor. And pure is a pretty good word, I think, for this too. Cause that’s how we’re selling it right? As like natural, pure. Pure is a good word. Yeah. Pristine.
44:05
Pure ingredients. Would that be it?
Chris Hanna 44:08
Pure ingredient?
Sam McKinney 44:10
Yeah.
Chris Hanna 44:11
Yes. I really love the idea of getting rid of the “s,” for some reason. It’s like a subtle nod at the fact of what this really is. Yeah. Do you want to go for that? Like, pure ingredient?
Sam McKinney 44:24
Sure.
Chris Hanna 44:25
Okay, cool. So it sounds like this is almost more of like a rebrand, which I’m totally cool and okay with, have you guys thought about, like what form this would ultimately take on?
Sam McKinney 44:38
We could do commercial, we could do just posters. We could do print ads. I don’t think I think the rebrand’s the main thing.
Chris Hanna 44:46
I know that we kind of thought that the in store thing was just like a first gut reaction. But is there something to be said for just like, a really simple sort of, I don’t know what you would call it, like piece of collateral above like a shelving unit for the cans of soda that just says like one of the lines that we’ve got here?
Sam McKinney 45:11
Yeah, we can do that. We could do either a standee like a, one of those little shelf things that go in the middle of an aisle.
Chris Hanna 45:19
Yeah.
Sam McKinney 45:19
Or we can do a shelf strip. Or we can do like, a hanging thing.
Chris Hanna 45:26
Yeah, something, something like that. Because I think that it, it does, like the simplicity of like, the copy that we’ve come up with does work well for that medium.
Sam McKinney 45:36
Okay.
Chris Hanna 45:37
What do you say, John?
John Fish 45:38
I think that’s like, that’s how I was thinking of it, too. That’s awesome. I’m stoked on this. This is gonna be funny.
Wormulon Queen 45:44
We’ll market it as “new Slurm.” Then when everyone hates it, we’ll bring back “Slurm Classic” and make billions.
John Fish 45:54
Run it back, Chris.
Chris Hanna 45:56
Okay, so our insight is that slurm is the healthiest junk food that you can get for your kid. And that’s led us to the tagline “the good crap.” For the execution, we’re going to be doing an in store display with a very simple visual rebrand, along with simple copy that’s going to be speaking to the organic, natural aspects of the soda, as well as hinting at the fact that it literally is crap. And so the first line that we have is “naturally processed.” The second one is “canned at the source.” And last “pure ingredient.” The good crap. Slurm.
Sam McKinney 46:36
Good job, everybody. I think this one’s a good one.
John Fish 46:40
I think this is some good crap!
Sam McKinney 46:42
You beat me to it.
Chris Hanna 46:45
We were selling crap. Well, John, we hope that you have a very happy birthday. Do you have any any big plans?
John Fish 46:53
I think we’re gonna get takeout, and this will be the first time that we’ve gotten takeout since everything happened in our-
Sam McKinney 46:59
Who you got, where you gonna get it from?
Chris Hanna 47:01
Yeah?
John Fish 47:02
um, I I’m trying to decide right now, it’s actually kind of tough. And like the basic bitch in me wants to get Cheesecake Factory.
Chris Hanna 47:13
There is no shame with the Cheesecake Factory. All right, well, while John decides what restaurant to get his first takeout in months from, we want to thank everyone for listening to this episode. You can as always follow us on Instagram at @ADtempted, A-D-T-E-M-P-T-E-D. Spelled it right that time! And yeah, any any last words of wisdom, Sam?
Sam McKinney 47:41
Pop open the good crap.
Chris Hanna 47:42
John Fish 47:42
Bon voyage!