Saturday, February 03, 2007

Bullseye gives you flaps!

Coffee is for winners, go-getters, tea-ignorers, lunch-cancellers, early-risers, guilt-ridden strivers, money-obsessives and status-driven spiritually empty lunatics. It is an enervating force. We should resist it and embrace tea, the ancient drink of poets, philosophers and meditators. ('How to be Idle', Tom Hodgkinson, p98).

Whilst ruminating earlier today upon the beneficient properties of a cup of tea, I hit upon a wonderful business idea. The co-owner of Red Bull, Dietrich Mateschitz has made himself an awful lot of money by selling what is basically a carbonated sugary drink, with added caffeine. To market Red Bull, Mateschitz has associated the brand with various 'extreme' and adrenaline-fuelled activities such as Formula One, skydiving, aeroplane acrobatics, and snowboarding. This appeals, of course, to people who need above-average levels of stimulation to feel good. There is, however, another sub-population of people, for whom the average day at work provides more than enough stimulation, and who love nothing better than some rest and relaxation.

For these people, I will launch 'Bullseye', a carbonated sugary drink, with added tea. I will market the drink by associating it with activities such as: having a long soak in the bath; watching TV with your feet up; reading a good book or magazine; listening to the rain susurrating sibilantly upon the window pane; and dozing in bed, as the alpha brain-waves lap gently upon the shores of consciousness.

I will also market it with the slogan, 'Bullseye gives you flaps!' This is short and memorable, conveys the idea of slowing down one's speed of flight by deploying the wing-flaps, and also includes a vital adolescent double-entendre, which will have the media-types sniggering. It's pure marketing genius.

6 comments:

Anonymous said...

You're onto a winner, Gordon. Although I'm not sure about the name. How about 'Red Lull'? It lets you wait in the wings? No. A bit lame. Can't think of a catchphrase. Maybe yours is better. It's good fun, though, trying to come up with these.

Gordon McCabe said...

'Bullseye' also offers a chance of a tie-in with Jim Bowen.

Anonymous said...

I see. You really have given this some thought.

Anonymous said...

I agree with the idea but that it should be modified to a tea drink with added heroin. It is aiming to relax after a hard day's work, after all. I'm struggling for an alternative name, although wait, inspiration doth arrive in luminous glory. We keep the name Bullseye, and for the tv advertising campaign use the image of a syringe hitting the bullseye of a dartboard. The bullseye then transforms to a cup of tea, camera pulls back and beautiful woman in bath sipping said cup with ecstatic expression. I'm not sure if this should be followed by the voiceover, "Bullseye gives you flaps."

Gordon McCabe said...

That advert, Andrew, would only run for a few days before we'd be forced to pull it, due to the number of complaints submitted to Ofcom. But think of the publicity!

"We're so good at television!" (cf. The Armando Iannucci Shows, 2001, www.wernhamhogg.co.uk/armando/gallery/gallerypics/tellydance1.jpg).

Anonymous said...

I think that photo sums up our projected joy at an awesome if short-lived campaign.