brand-e

By Hugh Jordan. Brand bonkers? What do you get if you cross a cow and half a tonne of baked beans? Usually the response would be ‘a lot of methane’. But when the animal in question happens to be Cow PR, the award-winning comms agency, the answer is a Heinz pop-up cafe in London.
Cow PR is also the brains behind innovative campaigns such as Aunt Bessie’s Mash Van – where all-weather ‘99’ cones of mash, peas and gravy were thrust upon an unsuspecting public – and Scent Of Seduction, featuring Piers Morgan posing half-naked as the ‘face’ of Burger King’s flame-grilled cologne.
There’s more to the outfit that that, of course.
“People often associate us with consumer-facing campaigns but we do a lot of corporate and straighter work too,” says Sian Morgan, founder of Cow PR. “We are a people-first company that looks to push creative boundaries. We tweak ideas so that they don’t fit as naturally as they should.”
And the key is always to improve on a brand’s performance.
“Some of our campaigns can potentially seem a little bonkers but they do deliver on the bottom line,” Morgan says. “The Mash Van was seen by over 300,000 people, was featured in 80 publications, and sales of Aunt Bessie’s frozen mash rose between 88% and 190% in the cities [where] the vans toured.”
And what was this Heinz pop-up café thing?
Well, the brand tasked Cow with devising a campaign to compliment its Only Heinz Will Do ad campaign running on TV. And the brief was to put across Heinz’s ‘comfort factor’.
“We all know what the comfort factor is,” says Morgan. “Heinz is a brand that has a warm glow about it in the UK, even though it is an American company. But how do you bring that to life? Comfort factor is not something tangible.”
The pop-up cafe was decked out to look like the front room of a family home. Two real mums and a dad served plates of beans on toast to hungry office workers. Payment was by means of donation – a minimum of 50p required – with all money going to Help A London Child.
During the three days the café was open, it served up over half a tonne of baked beans, raising £2,000 for charity in the process. One punter donated £60 for his feed – perhaps the most expensive plate of beans on toast ever.
Like the Mash Van and Flame-Grilled fragrance before it, the Heinz pop-up café demonstrates what the agency does best – taking a brand out of its comfort zone and showing it off in an entirely different light.
So, what’s coming up for Cow?
“We have just got some new clients, [security software company] AVG and Flowers of Holland, who have both given us really interesting briefs,” says Morgan. “Plus, there is more to come from Piers and Scent Of Seduction.”
You’ll never look at a Whopper in the same way again