Bacardi Breezer is a rum based mixed drink, It comes in a number of bright fruit flavours, in predominantly clear packaging (showing the colours), and is designed to be drunk from the bottle. It arrived a little late into a market that had already acquired the alcopop tag and earlier campaigns strived to distance it from the associations of underage drinking e.g. the 'a guy walks into a bar...', voiceover heavy, anecdote series which focused on the whimsical relationship problems of 20-30somethings (one character even had a beard). More recent campaigns from McCann-Erickson have moved towards a youth market, stressing images of hedonism and freedom, and drawing sharp contrasts with older generations. Summarized, the last campaign involved young people in formal situations (a job interview, meeting the in-laws, meeting a potential landlady) being questioned by mature adults who are coded by their clothing, mannerisms and the camera angles used as boring, severe and lacking humour. The responses they are given are illustrated as marginally truthful as the viewer is shown snippets of the central character partying (with lots of B.B.). An interest in ornithology is depicted as watching scantily clad women dance - bird watching. At each turn there is a similar stretching of a linguistic sign; the connection always can be made through the use of slang and youth terms and this offers the target audience an ability to feel they have 'got it', connecting to the young vibrant characters though participation in the deception of those in a situation of power. Oppositions of age/youth are set up and illustrated through codes of colour - dull/vibrant, movement - stillness/speed, and sound - sparse & diegetic/lively music, and through these codes, connotative meanings are attached to the original binary opposition of age/youth: conformity vs. individuality, proper behavior vs. hedonism and respectability vs. enjoyment. Together these combine to give a sense that youth=freedom and age=restriction. These ads also develop a concept of the duality of young peoples lives, having to fit into established structures - day life, and being 'themselves' - night life (in this series, not only restricted to dark so perhaps also encompassing holiday life and student life). Many of these ideas are continued in the new series but the age/youth binary has lost its confrontational, power aspect, and by replacing the human protagonists with a cat it has become possible to bypass some of the class specific connotations of youth activity (some of those partying shots smacked of 'gap year' and those were very middle class in-laws).
In a recent article in the Guardian, Sarah O'Brien of McCann-Erickson says of the current campaign "The aim was to attract more men without alienating women, who make up most of Bacardi's business" (Walters 2000: 45). This is a hard task; the entire product type has traditionally been seen as a woman's drink (at least within the legal, over18s market), and the type of male orientated marketing traditionally used for beer and cider could prove offensive to women and incongruously ineffective on the target audience if transferred to a product with a lighter image. The solution they have found is to transpose the qualities they wish to associate with the product onto the Tomcat character, simultaneously calling on behavior myths of the male cat while sidestepping many of the gendered problems of human social interaction. The first ad I wish to look at is simply titled Tomcat on the agency's website. The genesis for this is explained by O'Brien "Cats were chosen because research shows that people think of them as cool. No one knows where they go at night, and that was the hook" (Walters 2000: 45). In this ad a silver tabby, signified as male by the name Tom and a characteristically male, broad face, leaves the flat where he lives with an old woman to go clubbing, returning at dawn. A contrast is drawn between the domestic environment where he is a pet, a well-fed companion to the sedate old lady and his other 'night' life . This environment has unfashionably out-of-date decor and limited area; it is in a high rise with a plant filled balcony suggesting the wholesome (and older) activity of gardening. The relationship between the woman and cat is not adversarial and deliberately deceptive as in the earlier series but portrayed as mutually beneficial. Once the cat enters the club environment the pace of the editing becomes faster, linked to the music, the colour becomes more vibrant, and the cat becomes the center of attention, dancing on hind legs and gaining admiring glances from all the female clubbers. The product, placed within the club environment, is juxtaposed with images of glamour, sexiness, fashionability (there is a female DJ) and through association with the dancing cat, with novelty and fun. On the cat's return home he is shot in close up squeezing through the cat flap. The ears are a little squashed down creating a slightly bedraggled look, signifying 'the morning after the night before' and he has acquired a green Bacardi Breezer bottle top as a collar tag (showing the Bacardi bat logo). This connects the identity of the cat, and all his characteristics, to the product. When the old lady asks if he has been out 'chasing birds' the audience and cat share a double meaning but there is no conflict with the cats day job as housecat; it cannot answer. The narrative of this advert is deliberately sweet, returning to the old lady at the end, and the product/cat association has been established. The next ad (shown parallel with the first) takes a different, and I would argue a more obviously male targeted approach.
In Catcam, the entire advert is shot in the first person/cat; we see what the cat sees. It begins with a shot of a TV, a small bird, bathing, with birdsound. Immediately we see that the shot looks unusually convex, this is something normally associated with nature programme's attempts to replicate animal vision. Cutting to a shot of the room (again the unfashionable decor) from the viewers position we pan left. This is a handheld canted move designed to give the impression of the inclination of a head; we are firmly in a point of view position but we have not been given the conventional establishing shot allowing us to understand whose point of view we are seeing. We tilt down to see a remote control on a jacket; the evenings options - night in with the telly or going out. At this point the non-diegetic music, all bassline, kicks in. The remote and jacket are pulled out of the bottom of the frame as the camera moves off. We do not as yet know we are seeing as a cat but the next shot through greenery at the window, looking down at a taxi and some men who call up "Tom, come on" confirms that there is something unusual about the framing, we are too low for person height. Exiting the flat we descend the stairs and then cut to the interior of the taxi. Although many of the codes of continuity editing do not seem to be operating, the strict condensation of time we expect in adverts is still being used. Within the taxi three young men are laughing and interacting animatedly, with each other and the camera/cat - the person who might buy this product has good mates. The music builds layers of instrumentation and we do not hear dialogue. The men are dressed smartly and fashionably, for a night out; an indication of the type of man the buyer of the product might be, or aspire to be. The taxi takes them from the exterior of the sixties built block of flats to a dark night club environment where ostentatiously dressed women (wearing fake furs - in this environment everyone can take on aspects of the feline) look in the widows, evoking both the forbidden of prostitution and the importance of the passengers as the door opens to reveal a red carpet. We get a very low shot and the cat/camera is then lifted and carried into the club. The club environment is luxurious, dark and fashionable and within it the cat/camera is able to move freely on many surface levels including the bar where the product is being served and consumed. Where the previous advert focused on the participation in dancing, normally portrayed as a female pleasure, and used brightly lit and spatially open framing to show this, in Catcam the lighting is darker and the focus is on social interaction with the cat/camera able to break the conventional codes of personal distance, enticed, touched, kissed, by a succession of glamorous and sexually commodified women. Winked at and acknowledged by men, it does not arouse jealousy or possessiveness. Point of view shots that would be potentially highly offensive if tied to a human male protagonist: panning down a dancing woman's torso to her just parting legs, and just plain impossible: cut to another (seated) woman's legs akimbo which the camera passes through to reach a beckoning blonde, become ingenious, part of the building enigma. The cat/camera is able to go anywhere, and without consequence. This culminates with an extreme close up of the blonde woman's ample cleavage which triggers a response, an envious acknowledgement of 'too far' (for both personal distance and televisual taste), from a male friend and he moves to leave. Passing back through the foyer, we stop at the fishtank, glimpsed on the way in, and with a focus pull the reflected Tomcat is revealed as the fish dart away. This moment serves to solve the enigma (on first viewing), retrospectively associating the Tomcat character with all the action, and brings in the brand on the collar. It also recontextualises the camera's objectification of the women in the club - its only a cat, while simultaneously reaffirming the predatory nature of what has gone before by showing the cat's effect on its natural prey - the fish.
Within the context of an advert the use of camera has originality but it is also directly referencing through camera work, club setting and the bassline, the controversial video for the Prodigy's Smack My Bitch Up. In this, after a litany of offensive behaviour the protagonist is revealed in a mirror, to be female. By borrowing from this, the advert not only references the trick ending, but also the controversy and the macho image of the band. The use of first person camera and frenetic pace also parallels the position of console gameplay, again traditionally conceived as a young, male pursuit.
With the 'Bacardi cat' character now established as a totem for the brand and the potential male customer, the next ad, Golden Goal, no longer needs to show the product, and the entire advert takes place within the old lady's flat. In this the cat, watching football on television, celebrates a goal onscreen with a goal of his own (a ball of wool into a basket), and a dance of victory. The editing of the cat's leaping, kicking and dancing from a variety of angles, and with slow motion, suggests the multicamera shooting of football matches, and the use of editing and slow motion to replay key moments vividly. This connection is reinforced by the use of Latin music with heavy drums and repeated whistle blowing and leads us in to the final voice over which asserts that "There's Latin spirit in everyone". This refers literally and metaphorically to the (originally) Cuban white rum, and is the tag line for Bacardi's main brand currently being advertised with the very macho ex-footballer Vinnie Jones. In this ad Bacardi have managed to layer the associations, of 'Latin spirit' - a kind of attitude to life, of the footballing skill of Latin American teams (through the music and the cat's dance) and typical British male behaviour (through viewing sport), and by verbal connection and common footballing theme to Vinnie Jones (hardman and friend to 'the Ritchies'), and their own more established product. This ad, set within the entirely domestic environment implies that the Latin spirit of Bacardi Breezer is present in the emotions of football spectatorship, and the logo comes in at the end surrounding the image of the dancing cat.
Running concurrently with this ad is another, which takes place entirely within the club environment. In this, Tomcat becomes sexually competitive with a man characterized as canine. The ad establishes an idea of alert observation by following a P.O.V. shot of exterior through foliage (traditional cat environment), with a sequence showing the cat scanning the club and picking up on a man and woman in the left hand corner. The man's voice is brought into the sound mix informing the audience that he is attempting to impress the woman, and her response, looking left when the 2 shot has positioned her on the left, shows she fails to make the eye-line-match as established in the conventions of continuity editing. This body language suggests boredom and so the approaching cat becomes her rescuer. As the man describes the tenacious, predatory qualities of the pit bull he identifies with, and is attempting to ascribe to himself though a tattoo on his arm, we see the cat displaying predatory behaviour, low stance and tail down, stalking its way between Bacardi Breezer bottles. The cat is embraced by the woman and we see a P.O.V. shot of the cat licking the woman's bear shoulder, a possessive and intimate gesture, from the mans position. He retaliates by asking the woman to dance, which she does half-heartedly, putting the cat down. As they move to the dance floor the man gives the cat the single finger gesture understood by the audience as 'up yours' (polite version). The camera zooms in to the mans abandoned glass, a post production black frame around it, similar to the one used to frame the key moment below the logo at the end of the advert. This creates a sense of expectation doubled by the music vocal urge to "be my tiger tonight", and answered on the couples return when, to the next line "be my tiger surprise", we and the man see that there is now a goldfish in his glass. This causes him to spit water over the woman, which we know will mark the end of their relationship, and we cut to the cat, walking away, tail raised. Although in cat behaviour this is actually quite a friendly gesture in the context of this advert, and with this highly anthropomorphised character, it serves as an equivalent rejoinder to the single digit salute with added overtones of mooning. Within this ad, the additional qualities of wit and cunning have been attributed to the cat, and by association to the product's purchasers.
Throughout this campaign, through the use of the Tomcat totem, McCann-Erickson have been able to draw attention to the qualities Bacardi wish to promote the product with, without having to deal with their negative correlations. Where the previous campaign sold the product through flashback and, by suggesting the practicalities of jobhunting, domestic independence and marriage, created a tension between youthful behaviour and impending maturity, this campaign is firmly in the present and in the character of the cat finds an eternal embodiment of characteristics ascribed as youthful - independence, freedom and 'wild' behaviour. Where, with any human protagonist, issues of taste and class are thrown into sharp relief by their clothing, surroundings and behaviour, here the 70's decor of the woman's flat does not reflect directly on the Tomcat and the fact that he lives with and is fed by the old lady does not have the connotations of a sad lack of independence that it would for a human character. But, importantly it wittily acknowledges these kinds of circumstance, and so does not exclude those potential customers who live at home, in less than glamorous surroundings, who's lives revolve around the telly and for whom weekend nightlife is the highlight of the week (the working class concept of living for the weekend). After all it's cool for cats.
December 2001
