Loctite will go all in with a spot at the beginning of the
fourth quarter with the latest installment of its
less-than-year-old #WinAtGlue campaign from Fallon,
Minneapolis.
Pierre Tannoux, marketing director for Loctite Consumer
Adhesives, said he'd leave other details of the creative as a
surprise for closer to the game, set to air on NBC Feb. 1. He
declined to say which product or products will be featured, but
Super Glue is the biggest and historically best-supported brand in
the Loctite family, based near Cleveland.
The ad will be part of a broader effort that will include
digital and PR. By Henkel's reckoning, Loctite will be the first
home-improvement brand in the game since Master Lock ended a
decade-long run in 1995.
"There is no such thing as a low-interest category, only
low-interest advertising," said Mr. Tannoux, quoting Chris
Lawrence, director-account management at Fallon, which won the
Loctite account last year after a review. "I agree with that
statement overall, especially when it comes to advertising about
glue."
Besides being boring, glue ads have focused on demos of unusual
tasks that ordinary people seldom try, even as their glues often
fail at more realistic jobs, Mr. Tannoux said. He terms that
"losing at glue," while Loctite wants its message to be "you can
win at glue."
Fallon was the only agency pitching Loctite's business that
suggested a Super Bowl ad, he said; like other home-improvement
brands, Loctite is historically focused on such networks as
HGTV. Glue makes sense for the broadest-reach
buy in advertising given that just about everyone uses it, he said.
Omnicom's OMD, New York, handles media for Henkel.
The Super Bowl buy entails at least some increase in Loctite's
media spending and is also about "changing the category
perception," Mr. Tannoux said. "We felt like if we would go a
traditional way of advertising with the dollars we have, we'd
probably never get where we wanted."
Loctite had sales of $41 million for the 52 weeks ended Oct. 5,
according to IRI, but its data don't cover home-improvement stores
-- another major channel for the brand. Loctite trailed
Columbus-based Elmer's per IRI, but leads the "car-based" segment
of specialty products overall, Mr. Tannoux said.
But with Loctite's IRI-measured sales down 4%, it faces a
growing challenge from Gorilla Glue, based in Cincinnati at the
other end of what appears to be Ohio's Glue Corridor, Interstate
71. Gorilla's sales soared 23% to $29 million.
Contributing: E.J. Schultz