Aardman Joins Forces with Levi Roots

Press Release from Aardman:

LONDON, UK -- Aardman [1] has joined forces with Levi Roots [2] to produce his first ever above-the-line advertising campaign for Reggae Reggae Sauce.  The £2m campaign, created by JWT London, encourages consumers to “put some music in your food” and will premiere during a primetime TV slot on ITV on Thursday 3rd May and run until mid-August.

The ‘fabulocious’ ad, which has been designed to put Reggae Reggae Sauce on consumer shopping lists this BBQ season, also launches the new Mild Reggae Reggae Sauce variant, a product specifically designed to appeal to consumers with milder taste preference so as to broaden the brand’s appeal to a wider audience.  

The ad features Levi cooking up a BBQ in the back garden of a Brixton house singing the “It’s so nice I had to name it twice” Reggae Reggae Sauce song, the tune that sealed the deal for him on Dragons’ Den. Levi splashes sauce onto sausages, kebabs and chicken drumsticks to give them a Caribbean flava and a culinary kick.  

Tim Beard, Reggae Reggae Sauce’s Marketing Controller says: “It’s been five years since Levi was last on our TV screens on Dragons’ Den and we know from research that there are consumers who have neither seen Levi’s original pitch nor heard his Reggae Reggae Sauce song. Therefore we wanted to introduce Levi to them just as he was before he and his sauce became famous; an ordinary man on a mission to put some Caribbean flava into everyday British meals.”

Tim continues, “We decided to put the Reggae Reggae Sauce song at the heart of the TV advertising creative to rekindle the memory of Levi singing and playing an acoustic guitar during his Dragons’ Den performance when he slayed the Dragons and won the nation over with his performance.

 “If you’ve ever put Reggae Reggae Sauce onto kebabs, chops, sausages, steak or even into pasta you’ll know that it certainly livens up the dish and gives your tastebuds a bit of a wakeup call.  We wanted to show the sauce’s transformative effect, its ability to liven up any dish, and felt that that best way to do that simply was through the use of animation.  Of course the best people for the job, in our view, were Aardman.  We knew that they would be able to make the food look both fun and appetizing and when it came to Levi, we felt that the Aardman team could create a Levi model which could truly bring out his character as well as capture his look and style perfectly.

“The campaign heralds the start of an exciting next step on the Levi Roots Reggae Reggae Sauce journey.  Currently the brand is a major player within the jerk BBQ sauce sector and this campaign will see the brand move into the wider sauce category challenging the more traditional players in the sauce and condiments categories with the expressed ambition of becoming a kitchen cupboard staple.  With this aim in mind, the introduction of a new milder variant will also broaden the brand reach to a new consumer groups.”

And the ad is destined to generate success at the tills; of those consumers aged 22-40 years old, who’ve had a sneak preview of the ad, 65% agreed that they were more likely to buy Levi Roots Reggae Reggae Sauce in the future.  So there is confidence that the ad will successfully achieve the aim of increasing overall awareness and brand loyalty as well as, driving household penetration and frequency of purchase.

The TV & cinema ad will be supported by an integrated campaign comprising of PR, online amplification, in-store POS and sampling. 

Levi Roots Reggae Reggae Sauce is available in major supermarkets with an RRP of £1.59 (in a glass format). For more information, visit www.facebook.com/reggaereggaesauce [3].