Brand Barometer: McCoy's goes for the male vote

The new McCoy's "Man Crisps" ad first aired on 16 June, enabling the brand to improve its buzz, index and recommend scores.

The ad, which has been developed to strengthen the identity of the brand, is of a similar nature to the "Not For Girls" campaign by Yorkie - it suggests that the target market for the product is solely male consumers.

The ad, filmed in a pub, features a group of four young men standing holding their drinks and eating McCoy's crisps, while playing on a quiz machine.

As the ad progresses, the men answer the quiz questions: "Who was the bass player in the Sex Pistols?" and "Who won the World Cup in 1986?"

However, the third and final question throws the group: "In ballet, what is the term for a graceful bending of the knees?"

Three of the men look at each other in bemusement, but the fourth man suddenly comes out with the correct answer.

The pub falls silent, and the other men look at their friend who has so disgraced himself.

The embarrassed man looks mournfully at the crisp in his hand and places it back in the packet, before a large plastic tube appears above him, removing him from the pub.

The narrator then describes McCoy's as "ridged, thick and unashamedly colossal", before finally stating that they are "man crisps".

When the ad first aired on 16 June, McCoy's index, recommend and buzz scores on BrandIndex were 16%, 13% and 3% respectively.

On 19 June, McCoy's recommend score had increased to 20%, while the index and buzz scores for the brand peaked at 17% and 5% respectively on 23 June.

McCoy's index score of 17% and its recommend score of 20% are the highest ratings that the brand has seen for either measure in the past six months.

As the summer progresses, it will be interesting to see how the brand's scores fare on BrandIndex.

Only time will tell if the brand can continue its recovery and return to the even higher BrandIndex scores that it has enjoyed in the past. www.brandindex.co.uk

METHODOLOGY

YouGov interviews 2,000 people each weekday to form its BrandIndex, a daily measure of public perception of more than 1,100 consumer brands across 32 sectors. It is measured on a seven-point profile:
1 Buzz
2 General impression
3 Quality
4 Value
5 Satisfaction
6 Recommend
7 Corporate reputation.

In addition, we supply an index score.

This article was first published on Media Week