The most recent effort is a campaign for turkey bacon -- which
isn't even real bacon. It's a pretender to the throne, something
your doctor grudgingly allows you if you're so pigheaded you resist
her pleas to give up pig belly.
Oscar Mayer doesn't quite cop to that, neither does the company
run away from it entirely. In fact, "Unsung Bacon" embraces the
fact that turkey bacon is seen as something secondary.
So the company has turned to Michael Bacon, the mostly-unknown
brother of Kevin Bacon. Being second fiddle doesn't make Michael
any less interesting. In fact, once you're done watching the
charming video associated with "Unsung Bacon," you might think
Michael Bacon -- Emmy winner, musician, composer and Caesar-salad
master -- could give Dos Equis' Most Interesting Man in the World a
run for his money.
"Oscar Mayer Turkey Bacon has been overshadowed by its bacon
brother for far too long," explains the copy on UnsungBacon.com. "That's why it's
helping Michael Bacon and Unsung Bacons everywhere get the
recognition they deserve."
To that end, Oscar Mayer is trying to help Michael become the
most-followed bacon in his family on Twitter. At last check,
Kevin had 431,000 and
Michael had 1,858.
(Retweeting 360i's scintillating nuggets about ad tech probably
isn't helping.)
"Unsung Bacon" is yet another installment from the Oscar Mayer
Institute for the Advancement of Bacon, creators of
"Wake Up and Smell the Bacon," which turned your smartphone
into a bacon-scented alarm clock, and
"Say It With Bacon," which packaged bacon in fancy velvet
boxes. These were predated by "The
Great American Bacon Barter," in which a penniless man drove
across the country bartering bacon in exchange for a night on
someone's couch and other goodies.
In other words, a product that doesn't need much advertising has
some of the best-conceived, well-executed and, importantly,
most-fun integrated marketing -- digital, experiential, PR, video,
social -- seen in the last four years. And it isn't on TV. Go
figure.