Old, new, borrowed and blue - or purple

 

One of my favourite German ads from last year was this 1980s extravaganza from Perwoll. And little did I know it last March, but this heralded a rather nifty “practice what you preach” trend in the ad world. Ad recycling. 

Mars went all-out for it with their Healthy Planet Productions Campaign , where well-loved ads for M&Ms, Twix and Bounty have been repurposed to draw attention to the carbon impact of advertising and get some new messages across about climate change. All while saving on production costs to client coffers and planet. 

The other bit of good news about this is that System1, suppported by Mark Ritson, have long been casting doubt on the marketer’s bugbear of “wearout". If an ad is any good, it might still do your brand good 19 years later, rather like one of the Princess Royal’s outfits, which never seem to wear out.

Recycled and repurposed items made it onto the Christmas wish list for many responsible citizens. And responsibly-minded clients got recycled ads. If not the specific execution, then at least the idea - such as Cadbury’s extending their previous year’s campaign into OOH media.

And then there was the heartwarming recycling of the Shake ’n’ Vac song, or Double Diamond works wonders and other jingles from the past as reminiscence therapy for dementia patients via Heart radio and The Wayback Project. 

And the trend shows no sign of abating. This rather wonderful film from Cadbury’s (again) is not really a direct recycle, more a mix of old, new, borrowed and blue. Or is that purple?

What’s clever here is that it not only reinterprets the original Cadbury’s Mum’s Birthday ad ... but it also borrows from a rich school of “heritage” ads - something that the Brits do particularly well:

Some may bemoan the lack of creativity and originality here, but I beg to disagree. Choosing exactly the right combination of familiar and surprising elements for these films is an art.

Could 2024 be the year of the Circular Adconomy?